mdiehl
Posts: 5998
Joined: 10/21/2000
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We've debated the relative merits of the Zero vs Wildcat ad nauseum. When compared to the Wildcat, the Zero was the better fighter for air combat maneuvering.
That statement in that simplistic form is at worst flatly wrong and at best misleading. At all airspeeds the F4F had a higher roll rate, which is one important component of maneuver. At high airspeeds, the F4F had a greater roll rate, smaller turning radius, and greater turn rate per second. Your statement is only partially true (never correct for roll rate) and only true at airspeeds on the order of 270 mph or slower.
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The majority of US Wildcat pilots who engaged the Zero at Coral Sea and Midway all stated that the Zero was by far the better perfoming aircraft.
And by many standards it in fact was. That nevertheless did not result in the Zero enjoying *ANY* period of marked success against the wildcat. Which goes back to my original point. Guys like you maintain that the Zeke was a better plane, and the Japanese pilots better pilots, but those two statements are contradicted by the results of air to air combat.
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The only advantage the Wildcat had over the Zero in this regard was a faster dive speed.
That is incorrect. F4F had better dive characteristics, superior roll rate, and better maneuverability at speeds in excess of about 279 mph. The F4F was also substantially more rugged in construction, had armor, self sealing tanks, and better armament.
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One on one, the Zero was able to best any early war opponent. That is because they Japanese were dictating the terms of the fight.
That statement is incorrect. At Pearl Harbor two P36s bested several Zeroes. Among the AVG aircraft with better maneuverability than the Zero (Oscar) were consistently the losers against the P-40. In combats in SE Asia that I have been able to track, P-40s did well when they did not have substantial positional disadvantage. The fact is that only the faster aircraft can ever "control the fight" because only it can choose to disengage. The P40 (all marks) was simply faster than the A6M. What mattered most was how you used the aircraft. When the F4F and P40 were flown to their strengths, they were simply better aircraft than the A6M.
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It doesn't matter how much firepower your aircraft has if it's unable to put those weapons on the target.
Fortunately the F4F had a superior roll rate and USN training at deflection shooting was vastly superior to anything that the Japanese had encountered. As a result, it was often the case that even at modest airspeeds F4Fs were able to put six guns on a Zero before it could out-turn the F4F. Indeed, the Zero pilots had a tendency to rely on the Zero's superior low airspeed high angle of attack stall ("non-stall" is a better description) characteristics to disengage an Allied plane. It worked well against Chinese pilots in 1936. In 1942 it often simply killed the Japanese pilot, because going vertical too close in front of an F4F was a very dangerous thing to do, even for very brief intervals. This was a consequence of the intersection of excellent USN/USMC training in deflection shooting, the fragility of the Zero, and the substantial damage that a .50cal could inflict in a very brief interval of time.
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It's a poor weapons system when its best advantage is to dive away from combat. Put it this way, one on one, which fighter will achieve a kill position more often?
By the results, clearly the F4F was in a killing position more often than not. But your understanding (or at least characterization) of the F4F's flight characteristics is something with which I cannot agree because many USN pilots commented on the relative ability of the F4F to outroll a Zeke and outmaneuver it at high speed.
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It was the early superiority of their Zero, the lack of knowledge of US pilots in combatting it and the inpreparedness of the US that allowed for its successes.
The Zero did not enjoy any substantial interval of success against the Wildcat unless "breaking even" is the standard for success.
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US pilots had it drummed into them that if they wanted to survive, they had to use mutually supporting tactics. But in early 1942, US forces were still operating under their flawed peacetime fighter doctrine that emphasized classic dogfight tactics.
That is inocrrect insofar as USN/USMC pilots go. There are numerous accounts of USN/USMC training in tactical doctrine in 1941 emphasizing mutual support. I have not been able to determine what USAAF standards of the day were though, so you might be correct insofar as USAAF doctrine (excepting the AVG of course) goes.
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But they learned rather quickly that fighting to Zero on its terms would result in higher losses regardless of the tactics used. Coral Sea and Midway showed that the Zero's could be neutralized through mutually supporting tatics.
Coral Sea and Midway were the first substantial engagements between the F4F and the A6M. From what other battles do you imagine the USN pilots learned to their discontent about the Zeke's capabilities? That is my point. Apart from Wake (a bunch of F4Fs horridly outnumbered and caught taking off in Dec 1941) there WERE no prior engagements between F4Fs and A6Ms. And when they met, the F4Fs immediately fought the Zero to a draw or better. Clearly the prewar USN doctrine had an immediate payoff.
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As it was they barely held their own.
Well, it can only be said of the A6M that it also barely held its own, at least at Guadalcanal. In the CV vs CV engagements, the F4F *defeated the Zero* several times.
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And if it hadn't been for the robustness of the Wildcat and the fragility of the Zero, the loss rate would have been considerably higher.
Agreed.
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When all was said and done, it was the dedication of the pilots and the evolution of their tactical doctrine that allowed US pilots to survive the early battles and begin dealing crippling losses to the enemy as the year wore on.
They inflicted crippling losses on the Japanese in every engagement other than Wake Island on 12 Dec 1941. If yours is supposed to be an argument in favor of a Zero bonus, the most favorable evidence for the Japanese only warrants a 1-day bonus.
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Your use of mid-late 1942 statistics to justify the removal of the ZB is flawed.
Your claim to Japanese superiority against the F4F is flawed because there are no data of any kind at all to support your claim. It is true that the only stats I have offered are derived from April 1942 onward. On the other hand, there are no stats from any time during the war that logically support your claims or any argument for a Zero bonus.
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I really don't care so long as the total WitP OOB is also adjusted to reflect the true historical picture.
I agree. The true historical picture would, all othe rthings being equal, have Wildcates defeating Zeroes at a consistent and slightly favorable (to the Wildcat) loss ratio of somewhere from 1.0:1.0 or 1.2:1.0.
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And that would certainly have a far greater negative impact on the allied forces than the Japanese.
Beyond mere faith in the mystical cult of the Zero there is no basis for that allegation.
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For instance, VF-6 Wildcats should have their armor rating removed and durability dropped due to no self-sealing tanks.
The armor was in the pilot seat. The self sealing tanks were indeed more easily combusted, but then you'd also consider that the F4F-3 (which was the early variant) was substantially faster and more maneuverable than the F4F4. It had an even greater roll rate. As I understand it in WitP abstracts self sealing tanks and armor as "armor." So VF6's planes should have more armor than any A6M2.
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I can go on and on. How nit-picky do you want to get?
Go into as much detail as you like. If you can divine the way that the game designers indexed these things in such a way as to come up with an "MVR" rating or a "durability" or "armor" rating your observations might become important. And while we're nitpicking the F4F we can do the same for the Zero, because the A6M2 also had various improvements installed by August 1942 that were not otherwise present in December 1941.
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You state that the USN carriers should be able to go one on one against a Japanese fleet CV in 1941 and early 42 yet you have no data to justify your opinion.
Actually there is plenty of data. On the face of it the US CVs were slightly more robust (excepting possibly Shokaku and Zuikaku), had faster arming and loading and turn around times for conducting strikes, had radar (albeit early forms), IFF, and more planes. Since there is no operational evidence to indicate that the Japanese CVs otherwise were likely to turn in a better performance than the USN ones, I can't see why anyone would object to my claim.
All I see is a consistent pattern of faith in the cult of Japanese fanhood. Yours (and others) arguments simply reduces to this syllogism. (1) The stats I (mdiehl) quote fall outside of the scope of the ZB in the game. (2) Therefore you must be correct even though you have no data to support your claim.
It is a very strange, base, and non-Cartesian form of pseudo reasoning that assumes that NO DATA is a superior platform for drawing your conclusions than SOME data from the tail end of the time frame in question that I use to draw my conclusions.
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This is the Marshall Islands raid on 1 February 1942, specifically the attack on Taroa. Wildcats managed to surprise 2 Claudes who were not aware of the attack but succeeded in only shooting down only 1 and damaging the other.
That'd be a divide by Zero error (hehehe) if you tried to calculate a kill ratio, depending on what you use for the numerator. Expressed as Japanese lost vs USN lost that would be a kill ratio with an asymptotic limit approaching infinity. Expressed as USN lost vs Japanese it would be 0:1. Either way, that combat stands in favor of the USN.
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They were not intercepted before or after releasing their bombs. No hits were obtained but one bomb fell close enough to kill one sailor, injure 7 others and start a gasoline fire. One Nell, after releasing its bombs, pulled up sharply and attempted to dive into the deck of the Enterprise. It just missed but its wing cut a SBD in half on the flight deck.
Which has nothing whatsoever to do with the F4F as a plane or its pilots so much as size and position of CAP. In the February (IIRC, maybe March) Rabaul Raid 17 of 18 Betties were destroyed. No one has said that the Japanese lost every day, but lose they did, consistently, vs the USN.
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Halsey's After Action Report specifically states "The inability of the 5" AA battery to knock down the formation of enemy twin-engine bombers ... is a matter of grave concern. ... AA Gunnery Practices [should] be scheduled when opportunity offers, with ship steaming at not less than 25 knots. If adequate safeguards can be introduced, ship should be required to make radical changes of course."
Which of course has nothing to do with the subject to hand. At the time, IJN AAA was every bit as woeful. Unlike the USN, however, IJN AAA remained horrid throughout the war.
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But let's look at the next day's action. Here you have 2 US CVs facing off against 2 IJN CVs. We know the result. Lexington sunk, Yorktown moderately damaged. Shokaku badly damaged but Zuikaku unscathed. Both airgroups were decimated, Yorktown having only 4 operational fighters left at the end of the battle.
Shokaku's and Zuikaku's airgroups decimated. Shokaku very badly damaged. Shoho sunk. Yorktown damaged but not so badly as to prevent her from being operatoinal three weeks later. Lexington lost to a damage control error. Hey stuff happens.
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Only at Midway, do we see a decisive result and it can be argued that the result was as much due to Japanese poor tactical use of her air forces and lack of coordination as to the skill of the US airmen. There was also a large measure of "luck" involved, as there is in any battle.
Actually Coral Sea was fairly decisive. It thwarted immediate Japanese ambitions for Port Moresby, invalided two Japanese CVs prior to operaion AF, and drew the Japanese into a muckraking fistfight in the Guadalcanal campaign. As to Midway, most of the lucky breaks there greatly favored the Japanese. Were it not for bad luck at Midway, the USN would have had no luck at all.
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Again, what is the basis for your opinion that the US would, more often than not, win a CV vs CV battle early in the war?
I said the F4F would consistently beat the A6M. I also said that any USN CV from the get go should have as good a chance 1 for 1 against a Japanese CV as the Japanese CV. Some of the elements of that opinion have been mentioned above.
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Lundstrom and Frank certainly won't help you here.
Of course they do. Especially Lundstom. Fact remains that the USN won the first two engagements in which CVs faced CVs.
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The fact remains that the historical record doesn't support the outcome of such an action. If anything, it presents the opposite potentiality.
Only if you fabricate a history to hang your argument on. The only data available suggest to the contrary.
_____________________________
Show me a fellow who rejects statistical analysis a priori and I'll show you a fellow who has no knowledge of statistics.
Didn't we have this conversation already?
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RE: Proposal for CHS - Remove the Zero bonus. Any opini... - 
I think I have a morbid fascination with this darn game,)
These days I'm far more a statistician though and not at all a mathematical theorist. 
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