The A6M Zero was the absolute best fighter plane in the world at the time WWII broke out...

The A6M Zero was the absolute best fighter plane in the world at the time WWII broke out. There is literally no arguing this. Every other nation in the world was struggling to catch up when this amazing piece of machinery came out. If the Japanese would have had the manpower and fuel to keep these things running throughout the war, it would have been game over for the Americans and British in the Pacific.

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why was its range so good? just a larger fuel tank?

>BTFO over Burma
>BTFO over the Pacific
Weebs, please.

It wasn't BTFO in either of those theaters, faggot. Try again.

Light weight. That would come back to bite it in its ass though. The Zero was able to gain speed, climbing ability, range, etc. because it used very lightweight materials and had no armor for either the pilot or the fuel. That's why, towards the middle of the war when the Americans started pumping out heavily armored and powerful fighters, the Zero could no longer keep up.

>was in service at the beginning of the war

It was absolutely BTFO in the Pacific

It absolutely was not. Prior to about late 1942 when the Navy and Marine Corps started getting larger numbers of F4Fs and F6Fs, the Zero absolutely shat on American and British aircraft. And by 1943 when shit started turning south for the Japanese, it had nothing to do with the quality of their fighters.

>The A6M Zero was the absolute best naval fighter plane in the world at the time WWII broke out.
FTFY

>prior to about 1/8 into the war it had the advantage
>Americans BTFO of it with a plane that was slower, heavier, lighter armed, and less powerful than it through the magic of simple teamwork
>“not BTFO”

It also had some other serious design limitations, namely ammo capacity and top/dive speed.
In a dive it max'd out at 350mph or it risked tearing itself apart. Even the p40 could reach 480mph in a dive safely.
It also carried an extremely low amount of ammo for each of its guns, only 80-100 rounds for each of the cannons which where the only thing capable of reliably downing many of the armored american planes because of self-sealing fuel tanks, armored cockpits etc.

Its manuverability advantage was almost entirely gone against stuff like the F6F and F4U, which could also significantly outperform it in many other areas.

Maneuverability at the expense of energy does not a good fighter make. F4Fs were trading evenly with A6Ms at Coral Sea and Midway

>Zero absolutely shat on American
Bold claim friendt. Lets check how it fits the facts:
> Coral Sea and Midway the US Navy’s Wildcat squadrons actually shot down 14 Zero-sens for the loss of ten F4Fs.
> During the most intensive period of action in the skies over Guadalcanal, from August 7 through to November 15, 1942, fighter units of the Kichi Kōkū Butai lost 72 Zero-sens in aerial combat while the 1st MAW had 70 Wildcats destroyed.
Finally, the Japanese carrier air groups lost 43 Zero-sens in aerial combat, the majority of these almost certainly falling to carrier-based Wildcat squadrons, who in turn lost 31 Wildcats.
>This gives a total of 129 Zero-sens lost from May to November 1942 against the loss of 111 Wildcats.

Score for 1942 : 129:111 for Wildcats.
>Absolutely shat indeed.

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Sort of? The problem was that the A6M was a dead end that couldn't be modified or improved significantly. It also had a very high skill floor just to be practical. Both of these meant that the Zero hurt the IJN in the long run.

It was good at the start of the war but it was matched by the F4F and completely outclassed by the F6F.

It wasn't in service when WWII became a global conflict in '39.

The problem in the bigger picture was that Japanese aircraft engines weren't developing rapidly enough. Zeros stuck around because Japan couldn't get the horsepower they needed for a truly 1944-worthy fighter

Very good fighter in the hands of skilled Japanese pilots that were flying against much heavier and less nimble American fighters.
Started to become a liability once American tactics accounted for the Zero's strengths (learning to exploit its weaknesses) and as American fighter design improved while Japanese designs had mostly stayed the same. Even less effective when the skilled Japanese naval pilots had mostly been killed off by 1943 and replacements had not been trained to the same standards. A graph of the A6M's effectiveness would reach its apex very quickly (1941) and then show a short downward slope (1942), and then a complete nosedive (1943-45).

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Anyone: *Breathes*

Zero: *Bursts into Flames*

Because it was made out of bamboo and rice paper.

The Zero was one of the first aircraft with an all-aluminum design. It was revolutionary for its time. Of course Amerisharts will beat their chest and refuse to admit that somebody had a better toy than them even though there were quite a few pieces of Japanese equipment and ships that completely outclassed American designs at the beginning of the War

*Laughs in self sealing fuel tanks*

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F4Fs were trading evenly with A6Ms at Coral Sea and Midway
That's pretty sad, since the Zero had a 940HP vs the F4F's 1200HP engine.

Also you have no idea what ww2 fighter combat involves if you're making false dichotomies about energy management.

Great!
Mariana!
Turkey!
Shoot!

It was a good plane but the Japs just could not into engines. This became huge at 1943 when they could not keep up. It could be argued that the Japs finally did when they came out with the George and Reppu but by then they had no fuel, pilots, and the Americans had more Carriers and fighters than a late game Protoss player

I'm sure the pilots landed in a field and brought up stat sheets and started running off numbers to each other in a weird game of rock paper scissors. Would you mind saying which plane was heavier ultimately hindering its favorable engine performance?

Nah. The only thing the Nips had that were categorically better than the Americans were the torpedos. Ships were garbage. Planes were garbage. Infantry weapons were double garbage. Tanks were triple garbage

>Ships were garbage
Now I really know you have no idea what you're talking about. Japanese cruisers and destroyers were absolutely better in almost every regard than early war Allied designs. Read a fucking book and stop running your mouth because you're too proud to admit that another country did some things better than your country, as if you should even take any pride in something you had nothing to do with.

It's like people completely forgot how the AVG consistently beat the shit out of Ki-43s (basically the IJA's copy of the Zero) with fucking P-40s at the start of the war.

No idea what you're trying to say here.

First of all engine performance is the most important thing about WW2 aircraft design. Every nation was capable of making reasonably well-balanced, aerodynamically clean airframes. The major factor turning an aircraft from hopeless to useful was the engine. Witness the Mustang, the various marks of Spitfire in the continuous engine arms race of the European air battles, the creation of the LaG-5. A plane with a more powerful engine is simply superior in every respect to a weaker plane. It can go, turn, accelerate and climb faster or carry more ammo, guns, armor and fuel. The plane with the better engine should be the better plane.

Meanwhile most fighter pilots were shot down having never even noticed their opponents. And of those who did, the advantage was held by the one with the superior initial altitude, a situation that the design of your plane does not help with. Perhaps you fondly imagine that an energy fighter can boom n zoom on a hapless turn fighter in an equal meeting engagement? Sorry, but that's pure fantasy. Such a scenario would mean the energy fighter to have an altitude advantage to begin with, and if a turn fighter was in such a similar advantageous position the exact same thing would happen unless he was poorly trained. But "energy retention" you might then claim. But then the superior climb performance of lighter planes also has to be taken into account, and is in fact to be preferred. Energy retention only helps if you are in a superior position to begin with, It doesn't help in getting to that superior position.

The japs deventually did poorly because of the sheer disparity in resources. They couldn't replace their pilots, couldn't train their pilots, couldn't build more war machines, couldn't build improved war machines. The planes? They were pretty even all things considered.

Because Claire Chennault taught AVG pilots how to fight Japanese aircraft and to not get into turning fights with them. He tried to relay a lot of that info to the USAAC and USN but very few wanted to hear what he said, so when war between the US and Japan did come, lessons learned in China had to be learned the hard way in the Pacific.

I don't think nip ships were garbage.
American ships with radar definitely made it seem like it though.

>The A6M Zero was the absolute best (carrier based) fighter plane in the world at the time WWII broke out
yes
>If the Japanese would have had the manpower and fuel to keep these things running throughout the war, it would have been game over for the Americans and British in the Pacific
no, the zero was hopelessly obsolete by 1944

>Early war
You keep using that term and I don't think you know what that means

>IJN cruisers and destroyers were better
Lol no they weren't. The fucking things were so overloaded that they had to be rebuilt multiple times just to keep the ships from collapsing in on themselves in moderate seas.

One bullet to the wing was enough to destroy the plane thanks to unprotected fuel tanks

Couldn't dive.

Zero stands for zero armor for the pilot. A 22LR could go right through into the cockpit.

Pilot fatalities were huge. Meanwhile, Chad Americans protected their pilots with armor and self-sealing fuel tanks. Experienced pilot is always more valuable than the plane.

The zero was to the American fighters what Japanese men are to Americans: nimble, but weak.

Look up the hanger spaces of there carriers, literal mazes.

>If the Japanese would have had the manpower and fuel to keep these things running throughout the war, it would have been game over for the Americans and British in the Pacific

No

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But MUH ZEROS. MUH I-400

One interesting thing I noted from reading Saburo Sakai's book. One of his major complaints was that the A6M2 did not come with cockpit heater coils, which forced pilots to wear very heavy clothing on the 8 hour round trip from Rabaul to Gaudalcanal (1000km one way, similar to the distance between London and Berlin). Even then the hands and feet would get very cold and he had to dogfight with clammy hands and a dead feet on the rudder through thick gloves and boots. Just getting to Gaudalcanal took a lot out of the pilot's stamina, where they then had to fight fresh VF/VMF pilots who took off 15 minutes ago. Upon returning to Rabaul, Pilots needed to be lifted out of their cockpits because they were that exhausted.

A stark contrast can be drawn to how P-51 pilots were treated in the Germany air campaign. The P-51 had a spacious cockpit and heater coils. Bomber escort over France was handled by P-47's, so the P-51's could take off much later than the bombers and catch up before entering Germany. On the return leg, P-47's would again take over the escort once the bombers got within their range, while the P-51's would leave the bombers behind to land early. Of course, Japan didn't have the luxury of being able to pump out enough fighters that it can afford to be that lavish with fighter sorties.

>filename
isn't this image referring to 1945?

That’s the total buil5 between 1941 and V-J Day.

What that graph also doesn't say is the qualitative advantage between the USN and IJN ships commissioned.

For example, under Carriers it says 7 for IJN and 17 for USN. But the picture looks far worse once you break down the types.

IJN
2x Hiyo 25,000 tons, converted passenger liner, 54 aircraft. Only 25 knots due to underpowered turbines.
1x Taiho 30,000 tons, 65 aircraft
3x Unryu 18,500 tons, 53 aircraft
1x Shinano 65,000 tons, converted Yamato, 50 aircraft + 120 spares

USN
17x Essex 31,000 tons, 90 aircraft + spares

Well, I say built. But I’m pretty sure it’s completed and commissioned

With the benefit of hindsight, what would an ideal 1939 fighter look like? Given that we're basically limited to 1000hp-class engines

Spitfire with a fuel injected engine and cannon

Did it have quantum radar?

No, but it had Quantum Armor

Twin Wasp with 2 Oerlikon FFLs in the wings and 2 Breda .50 cals firing through the nose

US pilots also had a huge advantage in radios
its why the thach weave was possible, due to the high level coordination they could achieve with superior communications equipment

in contrast, some japanese aces turned off their radios before engaging so they couldn't be distracted

>at the time WWII broke out
Maybe, but it rapidly became obsolete.

Kek

I see your point but some of the Japaense losses inevitably include a sizable number of suicide attacks.

Well, let's face it: everyone wants to claim that pilots are fucking badasses who don't need pussy creature comforts like heated cockpits and comfy seats, but the truth is they're people and people can focus and fight better when they're rested and cozy. I mean, flying a zero is hard enough, but then you go in without even a heated cockpit? They simply couldn't run a coolant line around the engine and back to the cockpit b where you put a little fan in a box with a heater core? Niggardly and cruel.

A6M has an air cooled radial engine, no coolant to pipe back. Even if there was, you wouldn't want to do it that way because then at low altitudes the cockpit would overheat. Furthermore, coolant systems in fighters need to be kept very compact to minimize their target profile. A coolant line puncture will cause your engine to burn up in a hurry. The P-51 had this vulnerability exposed in ETO because it's oil radiator is the air intake on the bottom of the fuselage. This made the system large, exposed, and particularly prone to being damaged when doing a ground attack run. A stray bullet hits the oil cooler and there goes all your lubrication.

This is more because the USN realized the range disparity between their guns and torpedoes. The Mk 15 torpedo has a max range of 13.5 km under very slow running speed, and a mere 5.5 km at 45 knots. This meant that ships with 6 inch and 8 inch guns would have to throw away their range and armor advantage to employ torpedoes effectively. Ships like the New Orleans class actually had an immunity zone against 8 inch fire. The USN kept their torpedoes on 5 inch gun ships, including the early Atlantas.

The Type 93 could run for 30km at 40 knots. This is equal to the max range of the IJN 20cm gun used on their heavy cruisers, so an IJN cruiser can employ both her torpedoes and guns effectively from the same range.

Don't forget zero weight from the zero hydraulics the zero had, which was the actual big problem with the zero.
Jow Forums the only thing that makes parts move on the Zero is your elbow grease. Once she's up past a certain airspeed no man on earth has the strength to work the flaps. This is what ultimately made the Zero not a good design, because she lost her ability to maneuver at speed.

>pic
Oh shit it’s Yes Man

Japanese tanks were well designed for interwar tanks, actually. But they were deploying interwar tanks in WW2 because the Navy got priority funding for supplies and new development, so the Army got to stick with its old shitty light designs.

>Most of the aircraft was built of a new top-secret aluminium alloy developed by Sumitomo Metal Industries in 1936. Called "extra super duralumin" (ESD), it was lighter, stronger and more ductile than other alloys (e.g. 24S alloy) used at the time, but was prone to corrosive attack, which made it brittle.[10]

user, it was the best at the Beginning of the war but the Japanese did not really have a good time of upgrading their air force. The US caught up technologically and overtook the Japanese in technology.

Just because you have the edge at the beginning does not mean you can stop advancing tech.

Asians are really self hating wannabe whites. White skin is considered superior and high class. If you go to Asia, especially China, korea you'll see that there are tons of skin care products to Whiten the skin. Other Caucasian features are considered attractive as well, like rounded eyes. In Korea, they really take things to the extreme, they have a lot of plastic surgery there. The women essentially end up looking like lizard women.
lol pathetic gooks copying every aspect of white culture...most even claim to be christians now

it was very good at the very beginning, but it did have peers that it met with and couldnt always overcome
the P-40 managed to fight zeroes evenly over china, after tweaking tactics they managed to get good ratios against them