Was the Zero too good?

Can we get this thread back on-topic anytime soon? Just sayin'!

Just saying.. - what?

Seems you could've added some topic content too though, right?

The topical 'Mitsi' was the right bird, in the right place, at the right time, & earned its fame accordingly..
The Allies were 'caught napping' & 'with their pants down' repeatedly, by the sudden, & destructive,
appearance of Zero formations, from Alaska across to Hawaii, down to Australia & up as far as Ceylon..

Nippon sure got value for money from the 'Navy Type-0' & though it was getting past its 'best by date'
after a couple of years in, it could still give a 1/2 decent account of itself - when expertly flown - even then..

J.A.W. said:

Ford sure did build Merlins.. & in bulk..
It was Ford UK, yes, but AFAIR, its always been owned by Detroit..

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But the P-51 (which was part of the discussion) never used U.K. manufactured Merlins, it used Packard manufactured Merlins.

Shortround6 said:

In both cases the "modifications" include turning a 9 cylinder engine into a 14 cylinder and while the BMW 801 used the same bore (or within a few tenths of a millimeter) they shortened the stroke by about 6mm. On the Kinsei the bore shrank by about 16mm and the stroke by about 12mm.

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And as you and I both know, these engines started out with a core design that was massaged in one way or another.

But for the sake of the conversation, some folks saying that a foreign engine in a native airframe makes that aircraft foreign, is nonsense.

If we want to get absolutely technical, all fighters were American (regardless of which nation they were produced in) because it was the Wright Brothers who made it all possible.

The reality is, however, it's not where the machine was made, it's how well the pilot flew it in the service of his nation that matters.

GrauGeist said:

But the P-51 (which was part of the discussion) never used U.K. manufactured Merlins, it used Packard manufactured Merlins.

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It could use a British Merlin, even one built by an American company,
& yet it would still be an American fighter - that was my point..

But when did the 1st - combat capable - American fighter aircraft actually show up?
& I don't count SPAD's, SE 5A's or any other European, but US-operated machine.. as such..

And what does all of this have to do with the A6M?

You tell me GG, you're the one who doubted that ol' Henry mass-produced Merlins..
( My take on the specific IJN fighter thread topic - is just a couple of posts up, at No 102, if you are interested).

J.A.W. said:

You tell me GG, you're the one who doubted that ol' Henry mass-produced Merlins..
( My take on the specific IJN fighter thread topic - is just a couple of posts up, at No 102, if you are interested).

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You blathered on about Merlins being made by Ford in an completely off-topic subject about P-51s.

Again...what does this have to do about the A6M?

Geez mate, you been back five minutes and already you're in feet first! Good stuff.

GrauGeist said:

You blathered on about Merlins being made by Ford in an completely off-topic subject about P-51s.

Again...what does this have to do about the A6M?

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Again... you tell me..

Hey man, I was jest goin' with the flow,
& you got all het up 'bout what ol' man Ford did, or didn't do, building Merlins-wise,
Well you got that wrong, so lose the 'tude, dude..

Then you "blathered on" - ludicrously suggesting the 'Wright Flyer' was the 1st fighter 'plane..
& when I called you on it, & here we are..

Anyhow, AFAIR, a valid service test-pilot's viewpoint on the 'Mitsi' was:

"She's a beaut little sports-plane, handles like a champ, & drinks like a wowser,
but I'll tell ya what, I wouldn't bloody well want to get into a shellfire shitfight, in 'er..."

I'll leave you to guess where that bloke hailed from..

J.A.W. said:

It could use a British Merlin, even one built by an American company,
& yet it would still be an American fighter - that was my point..

But when did the 1st - combat capable - American fighter aircraft actually show up?
& I don't count SPAD's, SE 5A's or any other European, but US-operated machine.. as such..

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maybe the thomas morse mb 3 design 1918 prototype 1919 issued to 1st pursuit group starting jan 1922

Actually arguments about origin of planes is kind of relevant to Zero, as the Americans claimed the Zero was just a copied collection of American technologies, which it kind of is, but its the combination and putting it all together that made the plane. A machine is more than the seperate value of its parts.

GrauGeist said:

And what does all of this have to do with the A6M?

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Gentlemen,
This little tangent came about because The Basket made a comment about Japanese being behind the Italians in fighters.

The Basket said:

In my book Japan was 4 years behind Western powers with fighters.
They were even behind the Italians in fighters and I can think of no greater insult!

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I pointed out that the Italians never built a competitive late-war fighter without foreign engine technology; All of their best designs were powered by copies of the Daimler Benz engines. The Japanese on the other hand were quite capable of building competitive late war fighters without imported technology....

....followed by a diversion to Oerlikon cannon on the A6M

....followed by a comparison between the Macchi C.202 / 205 with its copy of the DB engines and the P-51 powered by a Merlin.

We are an easily distracted bunch.

- Ivan.

Was the Zero a copy? An interesting discussion in its own way. The Gloster F.5/34 is startling similair and was well known and Japan did have links to Gloster so a possible.
One thing that needs mentioning is good old fashioned racism. It would have been the fashion of the day to dismiss Japan as rubbish and thier aircraft made out of bamboo and paper. Also from what I read the intelligence on Japanese aircraft was poor to zip so the Zero was a huge surprise becasue it was unknown and the capabilities was unknown. The reason the Buffalo was in Asia with the RAF was because it was believed the Japanese had no better.

Also the usual Koga's Zero isnt mentioned so the fact a Zero was fully tested and found it has to be added to the mix.

The team that designed the Zero must have been the masters at copying.
The Zero is supposed to be a copy of
The Gloster F.5/34
The Hughes H-1 racer
The Vultee Vanguard?
The Vought 141/143
and probably a few more

No aircraft is made in a vacuum.
My fave story is the Tupelov designer who had to put the engines somewhere on the Tu-16. Was undecided and then saw a picture of the Comet and winner winner lets put them in the wing roots.

The Basket said:

Was the Zero a copy? An interesting discussion in its own way. The Gloster F.5/34 is startling similair and was well known and Japan did have links to Gloster so a possible.
One thing that needs mentioning is good old fashioned racism. It would have been the fashion of the day to dismiss Japan as rubbish and thier aircraft made out of bamboo and paper. Also from what I read the intelligence on Japanese aircraft was poor to zip so the Zero was a huge surprise becasue it was unknown and the capabilities was unknown. The reason the Buffalo was in Asia with the RAF was because it was believed the Japanese had no better.

Also the usual Koga's Zero isnt mentioned so the fact a Zero was fully tested and found it has to be added to the mix.

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The Zero did not come as a great surprise to the Allies. It had been seen in the skies over China and some pretty accurate assessments of its performance were available to RAF squadrons in Burma, Singapore and Malaya (despite what the history books will tell you about supposed intelligence failures by the Far East Combined Bureau).

The Ki-43 definitely was unknown to the Allies, indeed it took until 1943 for the 2 types to be discretely named.

I will absolutely agree with the racism angle on a number of fronts:

• Japanese pilots were often depicted as wearing glasses and were attributed with all sorts of conditions that limited their abilities as fighter pilots, ranging from an inability to see well at night to problems turning their heads to check their six.
• Racism also reared its head in depictions of Japanese materials as poorly constructed although, in fairness, the Ki-43 did suffer from wing malformation due to structural weakness, with at least one operational loss over Malaya ascribed to the aircraft breaking apart when pulling up from a dive.
• Continued racism (to this day) that, somehow, 5 squadrons of RAF single-engined fighters spread across Burma, Malaya and Singapore were somehow going to be successful in defending against an adversary that massively outnumbered them, and to achieve that victory without an adequate air warning and control system. There were about the same number of Ki-43s on the front line in the 2 Sentai assigned to the Thailand/Malaya/Burma campaign as the RAF had Buffalos in theatre...but there were also another 5 Sentai of Ki-27s on top of that figure, plus the A6Ms of the IJN further south in Indochina. That made a total of over 200 Japanese fighters.

nuuumannn said:

Geez mate, you been back five minutes and already you're in feet first! Good stuff.

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Great to see ya' mister, been quite a while!

Yep, good to have you back, mate.

which it kind of is

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Like Basket says, nothing is built in a vacuum. If you look at the development of the Zero's predecessors, its design team was influenced by US designs, such as the P-26 (1MF10, anyone?), and their use of existing technologies and concepts was not unprecedented in designing the Zero, but its design is wholly original. To claim it was 'influenced' by the Hughes racer because it looks a bit like it, when there is no actual evidence that it was is being disingenuous and not allowing the Japanese credit for designing what was a very good fighter. All metal, technologically advanced monoplanes were not invented in the USA. The Bf 109 put what was necessary for a early 1940s benchmark fighter together in a service aircraft first, albeit over time - it was a ground breaking machine when it first flew in 1935, yet no one claims it was a copy of American technology.

With regards to the Zero, the claims come directly from prejudice against the Japanese at the time, widely held by all in the west. There was little belief that Asians could build something as advanced and as good as the Zero was, pure and simple. There is no truth in the allegation that it was the result of US aircraft designs being copied.

If you ever get to examine a Zero in detail in the flesh, as I have and others here, you'll begin to appreciate that it was a wholly original design in concept and execution compared to its contemporaries. It owes a lot to its predecessor the A5M, but it is a big advance over it, also. Take efforts to lighten the structure to get the performance necessary. Lightening holes were not a new innovation, but the Zero is littered with them. Its canopy opening and crew access to the cockpit is novel and quite sophisticated for a late 30s design. Splitting the fuselage aft of the wing makes it easy to transport and again, has no precedent in that era. The wing has washout to delay the stall, how many fighters had that applied as an aerodynamic aid in the late '30s? The Bf 109 went with slats. It was a carrier fighter and was robust enough to take the punishment that that entails (gawd, please don't bring in the structurally unsound argument - there's no evidence it ever suffered structural weakness in service), yet it had excellent performance for its day.

Take a look at this thread I posted a few years back. I sourced information from it from a number of places, including a US intelligence document written in 1943. I have a copy, but can't find it.

Mitsubishi A6M3 Type '0' Carrier Fighter in detail

Good info, Grant and to add to that, the A6M had a remarkable amount of engineering put into it's design.
Additionally, for a fighter of it's abilities, there was simply no other type that was capable of it's range of 1,900+ miles (3,100+ km) and be able to land on a flight deck, concrete runway, coral airstrip or a grass field.
It was a remarkable aircraft.

Following on from #116, one of the reasons why the West was so dismissive of Japanese military aviation was directly due to the performance over China. It was widely accepted that the Chinese Air Force was woefully inadequate. Many of its aircraft were obsolescent at best and the quality of its pilots was highly variable. Yet despite these limitations, the Japanese were perceived by Western observers as failing to entirely dominate the air campaign.

I suspect part of the problem lay in conducting an offensive counter air campaign in your enemy's back yard. Clearly several Western observers failed to comprehend the challenges of maintaining a large fleet of combat aircraft at a sizeable distance from home.

Japanese combat tactics may also have played their part. There are many reports of Japanese fighter pilots seemingly more interested in building up a personal kill tally than in conducting cooperative engagements. As late as Burma 1942, Allied pilots reported the Japanese fighters apparently "getting in each other's way" while trying to engage an RAF bomber. Clearly, such performance would not be perceived in a positive light by British observers who had been raised on Fighting Area Tactics etc.