Hellcat Vs The Zero

[rousseau]

I am sure one point that Mitsubishi A6M must be suprior than Hellcat, is the range longer aproxi to 300km. I still don't know why Zero take such long range than most of US fighter aeroplane.

[FLYBOYJ]

Originally Posted by rousseau

I am sure one point that Mitsubishi A6M must be suprior than Hellcat, is the range longer aproxi to 300km. I still don't know why Zero take such long range than most of US fighter aeroplane.

The Zero had a 300 mile advantage in range. It was built lighter. In the end it's advantage in range didn't matter...

[evangilder]

I'll take survivability over range any day.

[syscom3]

And the Zero's poor handling charachteristics above 300 mph hampered the pilot.

Not to mention two 7mm MG's and two underpowered cannons wasnt going to hurt the Hellcat that much unless the Zero was up real close.

[rousseau]

Originally Posted by FLYBOYJ

The Zero had a 300 mile advantage in range. It was built lighter. In the end it's advantage in range didn't matter...

The 300 miles is combat radius I am afraid but still is small deviation. I checked some detail, most of them denoted Mitsubishi Zero has almost over 2000km range.

[Aggie08]

I'm a sucker for anything with 2,000 hp. Hellcat definitely.

[FLYBOYJ]

Originally Posted by rousseau

The 300 miles is combat radius I am afraid but still is small deviation. I checked some detail, most of them denoted Mitsubishi Zero has almost over 2000km range.

Yes and your point? When the 2 met it was the Zero that usually met it's fate to the ratio of 19 to 1.

[Wespe]

Originally Posted by rousseau

The 300 miles is combat radius I am afraid but still is small deviation. I checked some detail, most of them denoted Mitsubishi Zero has almost over 2000km range.

Hi rousseau

come on what are you trying to proof ? Range ?
Yes the Americans where taken by surprise when the Jap's attacked Manila, because they had underestimated the range of the Zero's.
But besides that you are comparing a 1939 under gunned build design (nice design) with a (ugly) ultimate high power killer plane designed and build in 1943 onward. Try the Nakajima Ki-84.

Wespe

[Soren]

The F6F wins this one, the Zero is simply too slow.

Still the Zero is very agile up until 275 mph, so unless you're going faster you have to be mindful of the Zero's maneuverability, it'll eat you alive if you start playing on its terf !

Wespe,

Regarding the F6F vs Ki-84 scenario - The Hayate takes the price easily. A more equal match to the Hayate would be the F4U-4 Corsair, now that would be an interesting fight to watch !

[Soren]

The paintwork on Japanese airplanes wasn't always too good, but the Zero still has some killer lines !

[JoeB]

Originally Posted by Soren

Regarding the F6F vs Ki-84 scenario - The Hayate takes the price easily. A more equal match to the Hayate would be the F4U-4 Corsair, now that would be an interesting fight to watch !

Per USN stats F6F's claimed 114 Ki-84's for 12 losses. Besides being just claims there was frequent mis-id of J planes, some of those losses for example can be seen to have been in combats with N1K1J Georges (see below). But it wasn't easy for the Ki-84's. Of course we'll say "pilots" but the problem always is we can't quantify the effect of pilots. In theory paper statistics would determine the capability of "plane minus pilot" but their predictive power is doubtful IMO even if they are completely accurate. There were many intangibles of "plane" beyond just a few stats like speed and wing loading.

And accuracy of stats: Ki-84 and F6F-5 is a good example. There is no certainty about the real speed of the Ki-84, even in theoretical conditions, let alone real production Ki-84's in combat. The "postwar trials" showing it doing 420 some mph seems from original documents to have been a calculation done by US intel, not a trial result. It was published before any Ki-84's were tested. The only true original stat is the official 388mph which is probably too low (for a machine in perfect condition). Most Japanese quoted speeds are conservative.

And even the F6F-5's top speed is reported differently among more or less original sources. The late war evaluation of captured J types v F6F-5 and F4U-1D (it's real contemporary, -4's only saw combat in the last weeks of WWII) showed, for those two production examples, the Hellcat was only slightly slower at most altitudes, less than 10mph, and that particular Hellcat topped out over 400mph.

If you decide one set of stats you believe, you can have do comparisons and simulations and say which fighter is "best" independent of pilot and all other realworld variables. I just doubt that whole process is closely related to reality in general.

re; flyboyj : "Yes and your point? When the 2 met it was the Zero that usually met it's fate to the ratio of 19 to 1."

Not to sound like a broken record but 19:1 is a claim not a real result. And, it includes all F6F opponents, fighter and non. In 1944-45 F6F's claimed almost 16:1 just against fighter types, but many of those were kamikazes.

Combining both responses, the Japanese Navy 343rd Air Group, flying the N1K1J George, a roughly comparable plane to the Ki-84, went about 1:3 v. US fighters in 1945 in real results (it met F6F's, F4U's, P-47's and P-51's).

Joe

[Jank]

"Combining both responses, the Japanese Navy 343rd Air Group, flying the N1K1J George, a roughly comparable plane to the Ki-84, went about 1:3 v. US fighters in 1945 in real results (it met F6F's, F4U's, P-47's and P-51's)."

By June 1, 1945, the 318th, with its P-47N's, had racked up a 79 to 1 kill ratio. Certainly they weren't all George's, but you get the point.

~318thFighterGroup.IeShima.html

[Soren]

The Ki-84 was esp. deadly at low to medium alt, at higher altitudes fighters such as the P-47N did have the advantage. Some sources state top speed at SL for the Ki-84 as 620 km/h with the 2,000 HP engine, now thats fast !

And regarding the top speed of the Ki-84, well a USAAF test flight with the Ki-84 running on the cleaner higher octane US fuel resulted in the Hayate out-performing the P-51 easily.

[FLYBOYJ]

Originally Posted by JoeB

re; flyboyj : "Yes and your point? When the 2 met it was the Zero that usually met it's fate to the ratio of 19 to 1."

Not to sound like a broken record but 19:1 is a claim not a real result. And, it includes all F6F opponents, fighter and non. In 1944-45 F6F's claimed almost 16:1 just against fighter types, but many of those were kamikazes.

Combining both responses, the Japanese Navy 343rd Air Group, flying the N1K1J George, a roughly comparable plane to the Ki-84, went about 1:3 v. US fighters in 1945 in real results (it met F6F's, F4U's, P-47's and P-51's).

Joe

JoeB I was making a point. You could try to pick apart allied claims vs actual results all you want, the bottom line is by the summer of 1945 9 times out of 10 if ANY JAAF or IJN fighter was encountered by marauding USN or USAAF aircraft, the Japanese aircraft was going down in flames, either because it was overwhelmed by numbers or the guy flying it barely had 100 hours as a pilot.

[JoeB]

Originally Posted by Jank

By June 1, 1945, the 318th, with its P-47N's, had racked up a 79 to 1 kill ratio. Certainly they weren't all George's, but you get the point.

Again the point is we can't say the number of real kills was actually 79, or what it was. It's just a bad historical habit to take claims at face value. In that case it's obvious the P-47N's were successful, any likely discounting of the claim number is still a lot more than 1 loss.

But, as a general rule people often do say 'this plane claimed X:1 and this one 2X:1, it did twice as well' when in reality the claims might have been overstated only 50% in the first case, and 300% in the second case.

Even the same plane looked at from two sides. My personal favorite, that's inspired me to research it, is MiG-15 v F-86 in Korea; 10:1 according to the US side, 3:1 according to the Soviets, *in the opposite direction*. If you take the approach, "oh well you can poke holes in anything but...let's just ignore that and use the claims" you get opposite results. One of those numbers has to be wrong, and of course in reality both are.

The other potential problem is unit bias, some of the other P-47N groups had some rough spots over Japan in '45. The classic in this regard is constantly quoting the claims of the USAAF 325th FG P-40's in Med; when they claimed 3+:1 v enemy fighters, but that was much better success than other US Med P-40 groups, and the 325's claims were generously exaggerated besides. It often leads to outright wrong statements about how the P-40 really did. My example is just one unit, 343rd AG, but it's the only one in the period where I know offhand the *actual results*, per Sakaida's excellent "Genda's Blade".

Last time you posted that link I gave a two sided account of one the 318th FG's combats over Japan in May which *was* with the 343rd Air Group, and the latter lost several Georges failing to down any P-47's. It's not possible to judge overclaims in that case because the 318th's claims were much more than the 343rd's losses but other Japanese units were probably involved too.

So not to nitpick you on 318th FG success, or general success of US fighters against over Japan in 1945, but claims alone are a very unreliable way to quantitatively measure combat success.

Joe