Rising Sun warbirds

[FLYBOYJ]

Originally Posted by Cojimar 1945

People are free to bring up various faults of the Zero but this is not relevant to the abilities of the best Japanese aircraft because the Japanese had planes that were superior to the Zero.

The aircraft that were better than the Zero were not produced in the numbers to really make the difference or were not deployed properly...

BTW the Oscar was the 2nd most "significant" Japanese fighter of WW2.

[Cojimar 1945]

That is correct but the US outproduced Japan by a big margin during the war.

[the lancaster kicks ass]

The US out-produced everyone but the japaneese weren't geared up for a big war like that, they'ed placed their production so fully into a few types such as the Zero and Betty that when newer fighters came along it was almost impossible to change production over to the newer, better types..........

[twoeagles]

The long war in China had already hurt Japan, and by the time they attacked
the US, they were already rationing. The hope was that Americans didn't
have any fight in them, and would pursue a quick peace. The Japanese
really misunderstood our psyche, although Yamamoto, who had studied in the
US, always knew what was coming...

[R Leonard]

but the US outproduced Japan by a big margin during the war

Probably something the Japanese should have thought of before leaping over the precipice.
Discussion usually focuses on the A6M series because most of the really juicy evaluation reports are on the A6M2, 3, and 5.
Probably doesn't hurt either that A6M series (and not counting the A6M2-N), with a production of 10449 made up 32% of total Japanese fighter production. Add in the A6M2-N (327) and you get 33%. Nearest competitor was the Ki-43, with a production run of 5919; 18.1% of overall fighter production and 56% of the A6M production. And it just goes down hill from there:
Ki-84 3510 or 10.8% of fighter production
Ki-27 3399 or 10.4% of fighter production
Ki-61 2803 or 8.6% of fighter production
Ki-45 1701 or 5.2% of fighter production
N1K1,2 1435 or 4.4% of fighter production
Ki-44 1225 or 3.8% of fighter production
J1N 479 or 1.5% of fighter production
J2M 476 or 1.5% of fighter production
Ki-100 396 or 1.2% of fighter production
and
A6M2-N 1.0% of fighter production
and everything else are each less than 1% of production.
So, with the A6M by far exceeding all other fighter production, and the relatively availability of reports, it is not hard to see why there is a tendency to focus on it as opposed to others.

Rich

[HealzDevo]

I really do think though that the A6M was being built long after it was no-longer effective as a front-line fighter. That is where the switch comes in around the time of the Battle of the Coral Sea in that you have novice pilots flying machines which have fallen behind the start of the art. True you can make up for this kind of defect if you have a pilot who knows his plane and has studied his enemy well as a veteran pilot, but these were starting to thin out around the Battle of the Coral Sea...

[syscom3]

Originally Posted by HealzDevo

I really do think though that the A6M was being built long after it was no-longer effective as a front-line fighter. That is where the switch comes in around the time of the Battle of the Coral Sea in that you have novice pilots flying machines which have fallen behind the start of the art. True you can make up for this kind of defect if you have a pilot who knows his plane and has studied his enemy well as a veteran pilot, but these were starting to thin out around the Battle of the Coral Sea...

Novice pilots? Hardly. It wasnt untill the Guadalcanal campaign that the IJN started to lose the cream of its pilots.

[HealzDevo]

Okay, I had always had the impression that the Battle Of The Coral Sea was when Novice Pilots started filling in the IJN gaps in the line... But still the comment about the A6M Zero still stands that it was less than effective as a frontline naval fighter at that time...

[R Leonard]

As most long time readers here could no doubt affirm, I can say some pretty unkind things about the A6M2, but, one thing I would not say is that in 1942 it was less than effective as a front line naval fighter. The A6M2 was, within its optimal performance envelope, superior to its primary adversary, the F4F. Outside that envelope the superiority went away and they were relatively equal, each with their own strong points, each with their own deficiencies. If you want to talk about mid to late 1943, when the F6Fs and the F4Us were appearing on the scene, certainly the A6M2 was by that time clearly outclassed. If you were to speak to the USN fighter pilots active in 1942 (and, unfortunately, there are but a handful of them left) I seriously doubt if you could find a one who would say the A6M2 was less than effective as a front line fighter.

Rich

[HealzDevo]

Okay, just the impression I have always got. Okay, its wrong but that is what seems to be behind the lines in most documentaries.

[ohka345]

Sakae 21 radial engine?