What was wrong with the F4F Wildcat?

[Vassili Zaitzev]

The F4F wasn't the best, but it did fill it's role as a stop gap fighter until better fighters were developed.

 

[JoeB]

Even if the IJN used Energy tactics too, it's still true that :

Boom and Zoom tactics along with the Thatch Weave are what made the Wildcat competitive


Unless everything I've read is incorrect. A quick Google for "Boom and Zoom f4f zero." produces dozen of sites that say exactly what I did.
..

The Beam Defense Manuever (Thach Weave) was definitely not a widespread 1942 tactic. Lots of websites repeat each other about all kinds of misconceptions, that means zilch. See Lundstrom ("First Team" and "First Team in the Guadalcanal Campaign", but also Frank ("Guadalcanal"), or any of the first hand accounts of the Marine units fighting at Guadalcanal (which represented most of the Zero kills by F4F's in 1942), who did not use that particular tactic. The Thach Weave was a mainly post-1942 tactic.

As far as boom and zoom, if it just means trying to initiate combat with an altitude advantage, then sure, but that's what most fighters usually tried to do, including the IJN as of 1942. It wasn't something limited to the F4F that the Zeroes didn't do also, nor something the F4F did in 1942 that other Allied types didn't try to do too. For example, in the defense of Australia in spring-summer 1942 49th FG P-40's were trying to use 'hit and run' tactics but still only downed around 1/2 as many Zeroes as P-40's lost to Zeroes, better than P-40's had previously done against Zeroes (in Philippines and DEI), but not as well as F4F's did in 1942.

And later in the Guadacanal campaign (still during 1942) Marine units in some cases specifically sought to 'dog fight' Zeroes whose quality of pilots they perceived as having declined. Also, the engagements between carrier based F4F's and carrier based Zeroes in the 4 carrier battles of 1942 gave no particular advantage to the F4F's in establishing superior initial altitude, as some of the Guadalcanal combats did, but the F4F's did about as well in those combats as at Guadalcanal.

Thach Weave was not widely used in 1942, fact. 'Boom and zoom' is a major oversimplification of reason for the F4F's relative success in 1942, IMO.

Joe

 

[comiso90]

The Beam Defense Manuever (Thach Weave) was definitely not a widespread 1942 tactic. Lots of websites repeat each other about all kinds of misconceptions, that means zilch. See Lundstrom ("First Team" and "First Team in the Guadalcanal Campaign", but also Frank ("Guadalcanal"), or any of the first hand accounts of the Marine units fighting at Guadalcanal (which represented most of the Zero kills by F4F's in 1942), who did not use that particular tactic. The Thach Weave was a mainly post-1942 tactic.

As far as boom and zoom, if it just means trying to initiate combat with an altitude advantage, then sure, but that's what most fighters usually tried to do, including the IJN as of 1942. It wasn't something limited to the F4F that the Zeroes didn't do also, nor something the F4F did in 1942 that other Allied types didn't try to do too. For example, in the defense of Australia in spring-summer 1942 49th FG P-40's were trying to use 'hit and run' tactics but still only downed around 1/2 as many Zeroes as P-40's lost to Zeroes, better than P-40's had previously done against Zeroes (in Philippines and DEI), but not as well as F4F's did in 1942.

And later in the Guadacanal campaign (still during 1942) Marine units in some cases specifically sought to 'dog fight' Zeroes whose quality of pilots they perceived as having declined. Also, the engagements between carrier based F4F's and carrier based Zeroes in the 4 carrier battles of 1942 gave no particular advantage to the F4F's in establishing superior initial altitude, as some of the Guadalcanal combats did, but the F4F's did about as well in those combats as at Guadalcanal.

Thach Weave was not widely used in 1942, fact. 'Boom and zoom' is a major oversimplification of reason for the F4F's relative success in 1942, IMO.

Joe

I simply stated that the Thatch Weave helped the Wildcat overcome some weaknesses. That point cannot be argued. Why is 1942 an issue?... the thread is about the F4F. Not the F4F in 1942... The only one mentioning 1942 is you. I never said the Thatch weave was used much in 1942.

Boom and Zoom?
Major oversimplification yes.... and so????

The point is that tactics were develop to equalize the playing field.

Move on! Quibbling over semantics is not constructive

 

[claidemore]

Hi Claidemore,

>That being said, the Wildcat is an excellent example of performance not being the deciding factor in combat!

As this is mainly due to the Japanese missing out the 1930s' revolution in tactics brought about by "radio telephony", the example strikes me as less than excellent.

Opinion.

Note: I did not say that lack of performance was the deciding factor, I said performance was NOT the deciding factor. There is a difference.

 

[Clay_Allison]

I'd say that the old fashioned answer to why the F4F held its own is correct. It was durable enough to stay alive with a Zeke on its 6 until another F4F could come help out.

 

[Amsel]

One of the main problems with the Wildcat was its low rate of climb. That is a major issue in the early war when radar was still pathetically lacking. Luckily the USN had a good system for using aircraft for early warning so the fighters could have the 30 something minutes it took to reach altitude. As a matter in fact Jimmy Thach wrote a scathing report about the inferiority of the F4F in rate of climb and manueverability.
The Thach weave took a bit of time to be taught universally. It was devised by Jimmy Thach in his hotel room in san Diego before his unit deployed. Upon studying the reports by Claire Chenault and others about the Zero fighter he spent two nights devising a method to keep his guys alive. It worked good. By the time Guadacanal came around the Navy pilots were showing the move to the Marines and the rest is history.
The Marines had confidence in their armor,protected fuel tanks, and rugged Pratt Whitney radial engine. And the Thach weave confounded the japanese pilots for some time. It was perfect for fighting the fragile but nimble Zero. All in all the Wildcat was not a great plane but it did its job by taking off and landing on the carriers, something the P 40 could not do.

 

[HoHun]

Hi Claidemore,

>Opinion.

Sentence?

>Note: I did not say that lack of performance was the deciding factor, I said performance was NOT the deciding factor. There is a difference.

I did not say that lack of performance was the deciding factor either, so what are you trying to tell me?

What I said was that tactics were the deciding factor, and that can hardly be construed as blaming "lack of" performance.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[HoHun]

Hi Comsio,

>>the IJN's official doctrine based on experience in China emphasized cooperative quick firing and break away passes by the 3 plane 'shotai'. Their coordination skills were to be honed by such intense training that they didn't need radios to anticipate one another's moves

>Unless everything I've read is incorrect. A quick Google for "Boom and Zoom f4f zero." produces dozen of sites that say exactly what I did.

You might find a real-world tactical manual ("No Guts, No Glory" by "Boots" Blesse) interesting:

http://www.simhq.com/_air/PDF/NGNG.pdf

It was written for application in the Korean war, but gives a detailed summary of what leader/wingman-element and four-finger tactics that were introduced just before or - for most air forces - during WW2 are about.

As the point of these formations was to improve the defensive strengh and combined situational awareness of the fighter formations, you'll recognize that the suggestion that "intense training" can eleminate the need for radios is missing the point (to put it mildly).

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[parsifal]

One of the problems with looking at the Wildcat, are that the popular accounts are nearly all based on allied accounts, with very little Primary Japanese sources avcailable or referred to in these accounts. so the situation arises that the histories we read are nearly all based on one sided accounts so that the claims and victories are nearly all taken from the allied perspective. this is what Joe B is alluding to, and he is basically right.

I am reading the translated version of the IJN operations in the south pacific 1942-43. It is giving the japanese admitted losses, which blow holes in the routinely made claims in non-primary sources. I admit that the claims of allied losses made by the Japanese are just as fantastic, and fanciful as those made by the allies. However, if you read or are relying on "popular" accounts of Japanese losses, for the south pacific at least, you need to roughly halve those losses.

I tend to look at the overall trends before getting into the minutae of battles. The bottom line is this...up to the end of April, the IJN had only lost some 200 aircraft to combat, and had shot down over a 1000. For land based air, there were less than 250 zeroes available, and overall, the IJN only had about 1000 land based air craft to call upon. By the end of April the air force had expanded to just over 2000 frontline aircraft. Given the slow rate of expansion of the IJN air flotillas, that hardly suggests that the allies were doing much of anything, really, except getting themselves shot down

 

[renrich]

The Wildcat was practically the only fighter deployed by the USN and Marines in 1941-42. The Corsair(landbased) began to supplant the Wildcat in Feb. 43 and the Hellcat on carriers a few months later. However, the Wildcat never completely disappeared although it played a minor role after 1943. Actually the performance of the F4F3 even with armor and ss tanks was not that inferior to the A6M. The F4F4 was where the performance disparity really showed up. It is interesting to compare performance of F4F3 without armor or ss tanks with A6M. What enabled the F4F4 to compete on an even basis with the Zero was: It was better armed, it was more resistant to battle damage, it's pilots were better gunners and those pilots became better trained because of IJN attrition and the US pilots began to use good tactics which exploited the Zero weaknesses and the Wildcat's strengths. During the Guadalcanal campaign the IJN suffered from the same disadvantages the LW did in BOB and the AAF did later in the ETO. The Wildcats were defending near their bases and the Zeros had to fly and fight hundreds of miles away from their bases.

 

[Amsel]

I am reading the translated version of the IJN operations in the south pacific 1942-43. It is giving the japanese admitted losses, which blow holes in the routinely made claims in non-primary sources. I admit that the claims of allied losses made by the Japanese are just as fantastic. Given the slow rate of expansion of the IJN air flotillas, that hardly suggests that the allies were doing much of anything, really, except getting themselves shot down

That is correct. The Americans got their butt kicked most of the time up until Guadacanal. By the time Guadacanal was over American aces were teaching what they knew in classrooms ,spreading the knowledge to thousands of pilots. The aircraft was also getting better. But the early war for America was a scary time. The Japanese knew their business and knew it well. They did not pass the knowledge on to student pilots in the classroom. And that was a mistake on their part.

 

[davparlr]

An early monoplane design, it was orginally a bi-plane design, the F4F performed admiralby throughout the war, and was, at the on-set the best allied carrier fighter. It was certainly comparable to its allied contemporaries in the Pacific, the P-40, P-39, and Hurricane, although the F4F was, understandabley, somewhat slower, but then, so was the Zero.

The F4F held off the Japanese when the Japanese were at their best. Much of the F6F glory came at the expense of a lesser trained and experienced enemy, including Kamikaze (which I suspect was basically target practice). I think it would be interesting to see how many F6F kills were Kamikazes.

The Zero only obtained its fame due to exteme lightness, which gave it very good power loading and wing loading, and would never have been acceptable in alllied or other axis airforces.

The F4F, along with its pilots, should always be honored as a vital part of the "thin red line" that fought toe-to-toe with, and stopped, the Jappanese juggarnaut in the Pacific while America was still ramping up its war fighting ability.

 

[JoeB]

1. I simply stated that the Thatch Weave helped the Wildcat overcome some weaknesses. That point cannot be argued. Why is 1942 an issue?...

2. Boom and Zoom?
Major oversimplification yes.... and so????

1. 1942 is an issue because the thread asks 'why was the F4F a poor performer in the Pacific' and historically, the F4F's key role was in 1942. By the time carrier action picked up significantly again in 1943 the USN carrier sdns were mainly equipped with F6F's and Marine land units were predominantly F4U equipped not long into 1943. In 1945, the FM had a smashingly successful record, so that can't be what we're talking about. So why was the F4F in fact not a 'poor performer in the Pacific' in combat record, in the key period where it was a 'performer' in the Pacific: not the Thach Weave.

2. Let's get beyond oversimplifications to the actual facts in more detail, I'd say.

Joe

 

[JoeB]

Hi Comsio,

>>the IJN's official doctrine based on experience in China emphasized cooperative quick firing and break away passes by the 3 plane 'shotai'. Their coordination skills were to be honed by such intense training that they didn't need radios to anticipate one another's moves

It was written for application in the Korean war, but gives a detailed summary of what leader/wingman-element and four-finger tactics that were introduced just before or - for most air forces - during WW2 are about.

As the point of these formations was to improve the defensive strengh and combined situational awareness of the fighter formations, you'll recognize that the suggestion that "intense training" can eleminate the need for radios is missing the point (to put it mildly).

Combined situational awareness doesn't depend altogether on radio's (which Zeroes were fitted with, just often were removed). Boots Blesse re: Korean War and his knowledge of WWII tactics as US aviator, doesn't disprove the fact that contrary to a lot of misconception, IJN fighter tactics in 1942 were section not individual based, and often energy, not turn and burn based. They were not as entirely different from the actual tactics used by the USN n 1942 as is often assumed. Later on US tactics became more oriented specifically towards the Japanese (for example widespread use of the unique Beam Defense Manuever or Thach Weave in the USN, though that mainly in the F6F era), as more was learned about them. Later still the Japanese did adopt tactics more exactly like those of the US air arms.

But any extensive reading of first hand accounts of Pacific combat (which I'd really re-suggest you bone up on, instead of constantly bringing up Shaw's book or Blesse as if they really address those specifics, I've read both many years since, and they really don't) or really any WWII fighter combat resounds again and again with descriptions where the protagonist pilot finds himself alone after completing a kill or manuever to evade an enemy a/c. The reality was often different from the doctrine anyway, in all air arms.

Joe

 

[JoeB]

That is correct. The Americans got their butt kicked most of the time up until Guadacanal. .

Yes, Brit/CW/Dutch fighter forces too (statistically more so). However exceptions before Guadalcanal were Coral Sea and Midway where F4F's in the first battle nearly held their own in fighter-fighter kill ratio, and in the second bested the Zeroes in that measure, first combats between USN F4F's and Zeroes*, and the first time the Zero hadn't come out on top v any fighter opponent in the Pacific War**.

*carrier based Zeroes downed one and badly damaged another of the Marine F4F-3's w/o loss in the final air combat over Wake Dec 22 1941 (though didn't prevent loss of a trio of Type 97 Carrier Attack Planes to the F4F's). It was the only F4F v Zero combat before Coral Sea.

**other Allied types won a (very) few individual combats with Zeroes before that, but were always being defeated several:1 in other combats a few days before or after, not consistently holding their own, or better, in a series of fighter combats such as comprised Coral Sea and Midway.

Joe

 

[tomo pauk]

May I suggest change of the thread's name? Perhaps the 'Airplane that bested the best*: the Wildcat' would be more appropriate?

*Meaning the IJN air arm.

 

[renrich]

Michael, if you can, do yourself a favor and get copies of Lundstrom's books. They address the issues we are discussing here as well,IMO, as they have ever been addressed. I only wish that he would follow through and get into early 1943. My impression is that the IJN were even more enthusiastic in overclaiming than the USN pilots. But the intersting point is, and you alluded to it is that neither side in 1942 had very many AC, at least not by ETO standards. The actual number of kills by USN Wildcats over IJN Zekes and vice versa was very small, somewhere around thirty each but regardless it was pretty even. Both sides labored under tremendous handicaps, shortages, breakdowns, bad intelligence, poor weather forecasting and in the case of the land based elements, poor food and living conditons and hygeine.

 

[parsifal]

Michael, if you can, do yourself a favor and get copies of Lundstrom's books. They address the issues we are discussing here as well,IMO, as they have ever been addressed. I only wish that he would follow through and get into early 1943. My impression is that the IJN were even more enthusiastic in overclaiming than the USN pilots. But the intersting point is, and you alluded to it is that neither side in 1942 had very many AC, at least not by ETO standards. The actual number of kills by USN Wildcats over IJN Zekes and vice versa was very small, somewhere around thirty each but regardless it was pretty even. Both sides labored under tremendous handicaps, shortages, breakdowns, bad intelligence, poor weather forecasting and in the case of the land based elements, poor food and living conditons and hygeine.

Hi Richard

I will try and get a hold of Lundstroms books. I would say this in favour of the Americans. I believe that their biggest advantage was in the higher leadership of the Pacific Theatre. It is hard to find commanders with the air mindedness of the likes of Halsey, Spruance and later Mitscher in the Japanse camp. I do concede that Ozawa was probably the most gifted carrier admiral of the war (many will take me to task on that comment) but in 1942, the Japanese relied too heavily on the technical prowess of their pilots and gave insufficient attenttion to pilot recovery, unit rotation, air defence etc. They were just so wedded to the concept that the war would be resolved quickly, and that they needed to focus everything on the attack, that the balance of their forces suffered tremendously. This, more than the airframe benefits, tactics and pilot skills accounted for the losses in the latter part of 1942 more than anything (although those other factors are still significant )

 

[MikeGazdik]

What you are describing is humility of the free man. The spirit of freedom is what won WWII.

 

[Soundbreaker Welch?]

Hear, hear!