One small point, it’s actually a common myth that kamikaze pilots only had enough fuel for a one way trip, if the weather required them to abort they needed to be able to return to try again. Some pilots returned multiple times from kamikaze missions (though too many returns was suspicious).
Initially the pilots were given enough fuel for round trips because they were hunting for targets at long ranges, say from Okinawa to somewhere among the many islands and inlets of the Philippines. As the war progressed there was less aviation fuel available and the targets were closer as the American and British fleets closed on the home islands.
A Hurricane pilot claimed that one method was to go into a high speed dive and pull out as low as possible at the greatest air speed which the Hurricane could take but would crumple the tailling Zero as it tried to pull out as it lacked the Hurricane's strength to endure the G forces.
A6M's are structurally superior to a Hawker Hurricane. The A6M, and Japan, were the first to invent & use 7075 duralumin, which is present in every AR-15/M16 receiver & aircraft structural stress points today. In other words, it is very strong and very light. For comparison US/Uk fighters used obsolete 30 series aluminum. As soon as the Allies reverse engineered an A6M they began to use this material extensively but mostly after the war. do not confuse armor & structural rigidity like so many other armchair historians. Also fun fact, if you just say "Hurricane" you could be possibly referring to the notorious Ki-84 Hayate (or Hurricane in Japanese). A late war fighter that not many Allied fighters could match. More used than an A6M by 1944.
The Australians learnt early on to not dogfight the Zero. They would fly their Kittyhawks up in the direction of the sun and gain altitude above what the Japanese typically flew. Then circle up there where it was hard for them to be spotted by the Japanese. If any Zeros flew under them, they would dive and unload everything on them and then zoom through them and out the other side and keep on going low to the deck and fly away. The speed they built up in the dive along with the surprise made it very hard for the Japanese pilots to catch them. The heavy armament of the Kittyhawk, combined with the lack of self sealing fuel tanks and little armour of the Zero, meant if they scored a hit on a Zero in the dive, it probably would result in a kill. It may not of been elegant, but it gave the superior firepower of the Kittyhawk the best chance of success and the Australian pilots a chance to fly another day.. Dog fighting the Zero often lead to the Aussies being shot down as the Zero was the superior plane in the early parts of the Pacific war and Japan still had experienced pilots at that point who could fly them well. Australians learnt to catch the Zero's unprepared and strike their airfields and take them out before they could fly. Both proved effective.
@@kasvos9292 Yes. the Zero was beaten in two stages. First, they learned tactics to defeat the Zero w/o getting caught up in the turn fight, because you didn't turn-fight a Zero and live at that point. Second, they built fighters that made the Zero obsolete, and trained their pilots to fly to their advantages, not the Zero's advantages.
If they did try to follow, they became sitting ducks for your top cover due to the poor aileron authority at high speed, an area where Allied aircraft were generally still maneuverable thanks to control tabs and, eventually, boosted flight controls. You could absolutely win a turning fight with a Zero if you were going fast enough. Even the P-38 turned faster at particularly high speeds than the Zero. You get your wingman to lure them into a dive and then break right and you could get on their tail and stay there. Even if you got right down to the deck, you could avoid being jumped by the rest of the Zeros simply by firewalling the throttle. Even if they managed to land a couple of potshots, you could take it.
@@Lurch-Bot The turning circle is actually far greater at higher speed for a given G loading, if you want to turn tight you need to slow down, not go faster, this is why so many pilots getting caught in a valley die when trying to turn back, because they don’t slow down to reduce the turning radius. I have visited the site in Brisbane where captured Zeros were dissected and also flown by allied pilots against our fighters, this was where a lot of the tactics were developed to defeat the Zero with a sound understanding of its flaws.
If anyone wants a complete analysis of the Zero, go watch Drachinifel's 2 and a half hour video about the Zero where he interviews a man (whose name I can't remember) who is an absolute encyclopedia about the Zero. It's a wonderful, detailed, precise, and no nonsense BS description of the story of the Zero. An absolute must.
"But, ultimately the kamikaze campaign did not have a significant impact on the course of the war." WRONG. The kamikaze campaign got Japan NUKED. Twice. The third bomb would have been dropped on Hirohito's Palace had Japan not surrendered, and that point was made very clear to the Japanese Emperor. I would call that "significant." Final point? If you look at the list of Japanese pilots who took park in both the battles at Pearl Harbor and Midway, you will find that the vast majority of them did not survive the war. The young pilots who replaced them were also shot out of the sky during the campaign in the Marianas (Saipan). The life expectancy of an Imperial Japanese pilot was very short.
I think you really have to focus on the highly trained and veteran Japanese pilots who had been in active war for 4 and half years when the Pacific War started. Pilot experience and numbers account for most of the difference even before we look at the machines.
@@maemorri It's a big factor, but the lack of development during the war on the Japanese side is what ultimately became their downfall. the A6M was in use from 1939 all the way till 1945. Still being made in 1945... F6Fs were prodiced from 1942-1945 which were 3 years superior
@@patrickporter1864 But they managed to keep the Spitfire maneuverable as it put on weight and got faster. The BF.109 just became a sh*t plane. The FW.190 didn't fare much better. The real issue was likely the fact that the Allies had the resources to spare for things like hydraulic controls, while the Germans were mainly focused on shooting down bombers and producing as many fighters as possible later in the war. So climb performance and armament were prioritized at the expense of handling. Late in the war, the Nazis faced a similar problem to shooting down enemy fighters as the Allies faced with the Zero early in the war. The main difference was that Allied aircraft weren't Molotov cocktails with wings.
@@maemorriThat’s actually the reason US pilots were better by the end of the war. The US had a policy that we would swap out our top pilots to train new recruits. The Japanese just kept all their best aviators on the battlefield until they died. This resulted in the best US pilots still being around at the end of the war while the average US recruit was superior to even experienced Japanese pilots. However, it did result in significant victories for the Japanese early in the war.
Remember also the Americans developed the proximity AA shell, which used a very simple crude radar to detonate. It made their AA fire vastly more effective as they only had to get their shells reasonably near enemy aircraft and height settings were no longer required. As a result, if a fragile Zero went anywhere near a US ship it's chances were poor.
It was called a VT proximity fuze. It was only radar in the sense of detecting reflected radio waves. I believe it detonated when the rate of change in the beat frequency between the transmitted signal and received signal hit a minimum. Increased kill ratio by about 400%. Made in huge quantities, but only used over the open ocean for most of the war, to prevent disclosure. I believe the small vacuum tubes survived 20,000 gees during firing due to being packed in oil.
@@fredemny3304 Couldn’t agree more - Dark Skies, Dark Seas….Dark anything is simply inaccurate, poorly researched and badly narrated rubbish. When I see Dark anything in my feed, I head the other way.
Pretty sure the "Dark XXX" channels are copycat channels. Their content often mirror new stuff coming out within weeks of actually good channels publishing new subjects.
The Zero's strengths were also its weaknesses. As long as its opponents did not out speed it, the Zero won but once Allied fighters got faster it lost. Its near total lack of armour or self sealing fuel tanks made it easy to flame it with a short burst which other aircraft could shrug off
I remember with horror finding out that the glider tug transport aircraft used during the invasion of Sicily didn't have self sealing tanks, and how that likely contributed to some crews releasing their gliders too early. But the idea of a fighter lacking them in 1944-45 is a whole other level, though.
It's so refreshing to get a well researched and well narrated WW2 video these days. It makes a welcome change from the usual lazy dross that seems to be prevalent on TH-cam at the moment. Well done! 👍
The Aeronautical building of the Smithsonian, on the National Mall, has a Zero splayed out on a wall, and an American fighter of the period, perhaps a Hellcat, hanging in the stairwell, ominously in its range. The Zero is delicate, even beautiful. It carried no armour. The American fighter is a lumbering hulk -- and it's clear that the Zero was out of its class
@@johngregory4801 who said a lumbering hulk is a bad thing? US aircraft were indeed much larger and bulkier than the competition but had the power to back it up
Have you ever seen the Zero next to a Hellcat or Corsair it almost looks like a toy. I love the Zero though, it's a beautiful plane and very deadly in the hands of a good pilot.
The wildcat may be called a lumbering hulk. The hellcat was more armored but also more maneuverable due to a much larger engine. That "lumbering hulk" would fly circles around you.😅😂🤣😂😅
The Chinese recovered a mildly crash landed Zero and returned it to flying condition. Several AVG pilots flew it and analyzed its capabilities. This was long before the Alaskan Zero was discovered. That the US AAC was oblivious to it is simply another check mark on the incredibly long list of Army Air Corps stupidities and delusional arrogant mistakes. Only US manufacturing overwhelming volume prevented the US Army from losing the war.
Chennault didn't actually come up against any Mitsubishi A6M Zero. It was the Nakajima Ki-43 Oscar he faced. The two types looked alike but the Oscars were flown by the Japanese Army in China where Chennault's pilots were.
A critical improvement on the American side was the development of a 50mm round specially designed to take down the Zero. The conventional rounds at the start of WWII would pass right through the paper thin skin of the Zero leaving a minimal hole. My father was in charge of a DuPont powder plant during WWII. He showed me an example of this round. It had a flat tip which would slow the round slightly as is hit the skin of the aircraft. This caused a cylinder to hit a blasting cap igniting an enclosed explosive. This explosive had a high brisance similar to black powder. Essentially it would all explode at once. The effect was to take off an entire wing or tail of the Zero with even a marginal hit. So it was no longer necessary to hit the pilot or fuel tank.
@@thestormofwar This was 50 caliber, not 50 mm. I held an example of the round in my hand. The triggering mechanism involved a metal disk that rested in a groove within a cylinder in the head of the bullet. The gyroscopic action of the spinning bullet caused the disk to float to the center of the cylinder. The slightest slowing of the round would cause the disk to slam forward setting off the blast.
"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve." May or may not have been uttered by Admiral Yamamoto, but it rings true. The Allies studied the Zero, and built vastly improved aircraft to counter it as well as the aircraft of the Luftwaffe.
Their capabilities were pretty well known pre war. A German who happened to be a Jewish designer for Heinkel took a job with Mitsubishi designing the Zero predecessor to escape Germany. As the war kicked off in Europe he fled to Australia and became the father of the Boomerang. Not that it was much of a fighter itself given it was an emergency fighter but more so he went from conception to first flight in under three months. Importantly his knowledge of Japanese fighter designs was a huge haul for the Allies.
Except by the time the"vastly improved aircraft to counter it" was built and actually deployed the war was long since over... A fact a lot of people seem to forget...
Yamamoto had studied in America and was well aware of its industrial capacity. Even though America had massively disarmed. He was right. 😢Japanese knew they had to knock out the capability in Hawaii and cut America off from Australia as a base they could use to assemble and hit back. Before the fortification of the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere was complete. They got close.
@@Samuel-hd3cp Yeah the END of 1943.... Was when the FIRST delivery of F6Fs were delivered... what year did they start the attack again? Japan had been on the retreat for close to a year by the time the F6F appeared in wide enough use and a lot of the more "skilled" (which i use that term losely) japanese pilots had already started taking irreplaceable losses. And ya know... Midway? The F6F did not change the war. It was merely another piece in the puzzle. the F4F did the job once they actually got more than 0 experience against the Japanese.
I had the opportunity to film U.S. Navy Commander (later Admiral) John "Jimmy' Thach and he described the tactic that he developed to combat the agile A6M Zero while flying the markedly inferior U.S. Navy F4F Wildcat. That tactic was named the "Thatch Weave". en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thach_Weave Additionally, Claire Chennault of the Flying Tiger espoused tactics that allowed the inferior P-40 Warhawk aircraft to compete on a relatively level field with the Zero. This tactic was composed of high speed slashing dives and absolutely no dog fighting. The Zero had higher speed than the F4F or Warhawk that opposed them early in the war (however it could not dive as fast as the Widcat or the Warhawk). It was also far more agile and had a longer range. However, the Zero had no armor and no self-sealing fuel tanks.
The Flying Tigers most likely never fought against any Zeros as they were withdrawn from China when they were in theater. Historians say that they rarely , if ever, fought against them, and most of them say they didn't fight any of them. It was mostly Ki-27s and Ki-43s (Nates and Oscars) and other aircraft other Zeros. The Wildcat wasn't really that outclassed once our pilots gained some experience and we learned the correct tactics.
I find it interesting that the Wildcat is called 'inferior' while achieving a 1:1 kill ratio versus the Zero prior to the F6F Hellcats coming to the fleet.
This gets a sub from me. It's surprisingly complete and accurate for a subject and touches on multiple reasons that all added up to the why the Zero eventually got outclassed. Nice work.
The A6M was not faster than the F4F or Hurricane. Where it was superior was in maneuverability and rate of climb. It may also have accelerated faster. The crucial key to its early dominance was in pilot quality and Allied pilots unknowingly playing to the A6M's strengths (being equipped with obsolescent aircraft like the P-35 and P-36 didn't help). As USN pilots learned and IJN fighter squadron pilots were attrited, the F4F began to do fairly well. The F6F out-performed the A6M, and USN pilots' and squadrons' better training left the A6M outclassed. The A6M's expendability as a Kamikaze was more due to the low training level of IJN pilots than to the aging of the A6M.
and late war P-40N and P-39Q others had superior climb rate. they could be upgraded, the Zero could not. Even the SBD was used for CAP to defend carriers in Coral Sea, Santa Cruz, Midway, etc. and even shot down attacking zeroes. Multiple SBD pilots became aces.
Yeah a lot of this video is full of incorrect info. The IJA had the Ki-61 which was their equivalent of the Zero. It was not the fastest plane at the time. Honestly this video has a made for TV boomer vibe that doesn't hook me. Also the Zero had many variants throughout the years of the war and the IJN was adopting new frames near the end of the war.
@@DisinformationAgent the Ki-43 was more of the IJA Zero. The Zero experienced almost no real improvement over the war as a consequence of its design. they removed too much structure to save weight, preventing them from ever upgrading to bigger heavier engines. Most later variants actually got worse, as they kept adding weight but no additional HP. Even Japan's fastest operational fighter plane of WW2 was slower than the P-40.
The other advantage of the A6M was its incredible range due to its very light weight. The Americans initially thought they must have had bases all over the place, as the zero could travel very far from its base.
While all Japanese planes were lost at Midway (except for some cruiser-based floatplanes), pilot losses were less severe. The BIG loss for the IJN was the loss of 4 of its 6 most capable carriers. These losses plus Shokaku being in repair and Zuikaku having to re-form its air group gave the USN a window of opportunity to take the initiative at Guadalcanal.
Japan missed an opportunity by not sending out scout planes at Pearl Harbor. Japan made a mistake by not sending all 6 carriers to Coral Sea. Japan made a mistake by not bringing the Zuikaku and the 3 smaller aircraft carriers to Midway.
One mistake by the IJN. When a carrier was damaged, its pilots stayed with the ship. Unlike the USN. When a carrier was damaged or in for maintenance, the pilots were moved to the operational ones. Also, they didn't make any effort to save downed pilots. The Japanese pilots knew if their plane was damaged to the point that there was no way to make it back, they were dead! That's why they would crash into ships even early in the war.
It was at Guadalcanal where Japan foolishly squandered their best pilots. Nothing like having carrier pilots along with the rest of your best pilots flying 8 hour missions where they had very limited time to actually fight and if their plane was damaged shot down the pilots were sure to die. That was one of the most foolish decisions they made in the entire war (to me).
I'm sure that arriving at the engagement area after over 3 hours of flight and having to pay attention to your fuel level did not enhance IJN pilots' effectiveness. Fighting far from base meant many pilots would be lost if shot down or their planes succumbed to damage during the return flight. The IJN was not good at rescuing downed pilots nor at rotating pilots home to form the core of new squadrons.
@@petestorz172 It was actually 4 hours each way plus the amount of time they stayed to fight/bomb which was dependent on whether or not they could somehow refuel them at one of their other island bases closer than Rabaul. They suffered from a lack of fuel, spare parts, and especially competent mechanics. Those long missions took a severe toll on the shape their planes were in also. Their shortage of competent mechanics was so bad that I remember reading how the troops who overran Japanese airfields were amazed at the amount of lightly damaged aircraft they couldn't use and that they just didn't cannibalize the more damaged aircraft so the others could be used, they weren't capable of that simple (for the US) feat which could have made a difference in some of the battles.
I only recently heard that there was another factor, not mention here. The fact that the USN planes were armoured and that a downed pilot had SAR resources available, meant that the pilots that survived and came back into action had time to review their mistakes and learn from them. Indeed, to teach new pilots what those mistakes were and how to avoid them.
Got a Zero in July 1942, but the first intact Zero was obtained in February 1942 from Bathurst Island, north of Darwin. I read, somewhere, it was used at Brisbane to prepare pilots before going to New Guinea.
@@martinricardo4503 It was almost ready for distribution by the time the Zero was found, restored, and tested, for some stupid reason that myth persists.
Firstly, losing almost 70% of it's experienced pilots at Midway pretty much stuck a sock in the entire Imperial Japanese air arm, Army and Navy. As the skill level of Allied pilots increased, the skill level of IJ pilots plummeted. This made it correspondingly easy to develop tactics against them. Secondly the IJ had much the same pilot rotation policy as the Luftwaffe. That policy was 'fly until you die'. Once placed in a operational squadron, a Japanese pilot flew until they were demonstrably unable to fly anymore, either through death or severe injury. But Allied pilots were routinely rotated back to training billets to teach their knowledge to a new class of junior birdmen and those junior birdmen were therefore learning the right things even if they didn't always have the high number of hours in type that their first squadron commanders hoped they would. Lastly, Japanese industry was strangled by the Allied blockade. While new designs were sometimes trotted out [and, fair being fair, some pretty good ones], the A6M didn't get the necessary development it needed to stay competitive with a] more and better skilled Allied pilots, b] better Allied aircraft designs, and c] the flood of Allied ships and aircraft.
USN pilots were also guided back to their carriers by the YE-ZB homing radio beacons. It was a secured, and easy-to-use all-weather navigation tool and saved many US pilots from the danger of ditching into the vast Pacific. The British adopted this technology for their carriers later in the war. One can only wonder how many IJN pilots were lost at sea when they couldn't find a moving carrier after a long range mission.
The Japanese needed to continually upgrade the power plant to allow armor and self sealing tanks as upgrades but this wasn't a priority. Japan's lack of a training program for replacement pilots was a glaring failure
My grandpa was an aviation machinist mate in the USN during WWII and he probably overhauled a thousand of 'em during the war. I have a picture of him posing with a freshly overhauled R-2800 about to be hung on a Hellcat.
I know this may be a small thing, but still I will point it out. At 9:25- it’s actually the R-2800 that was called the Double Wasp, which was also used in the P-47 Thunderbolt and F4U Corsair.
Two things to mention that the video does not. First off, to get that range, the Zero pilot would run the fuel mixture as LEAN as he could going to and from the area he was going to fight in. Charles Lindbergh did this when he flew "The Spirit of St Louis" across the Atlantic Ocean and taught this to P-38 Lightning pilots that effectively DOUBLED the range of that aircraft. For those who don't understand, running an engine lean makes it more fuel efficient but it significantly decreases performance. This is done by limiting how much oxygen the engine takes in. Once in combat you make the gas mixture rich so you can get more performance (speed and power) out of that same engine. The second thing is that once a pilot was trained by the Imperial Japanese Navy they were left out in the theater for combat. What happened with the US Navy and Marines (they were doing the most fighting the Japanese along the Army Air Corps) was once they gained experience many were rotated back to the US to train the next cadre of pilots going out to the Pacific to fight. So what happened as time went on, the Japanese lost their best pilots and the US got better and better quality pilots fresh from the States. After "The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot" in 1944, the Japanese quality of pilots was so diminished that poorly trained pilots had to be rushed out to combat and they did not last long. If memory serves it was less than five missions for them.
@kiereluurs1243 Well, the book was on the Lightning and it said that with drop tanks and running the engines lean, it basically doubled the range. No hyperbole, not stretch, just a fact that always stuck with me. The original range was from the manufacturer running the mixture rich without drop tanks.
Concerning fuel, another fact that I find FASCINATING is the quality of American fuel. German av gas was like 89 and 100 octane, maybe 120 at the most (and most rare). US av gas, by comparison, was like 130 or 150 octane by late war. This means that US aircraft could run jaw-dropping manifold pressures (like the P-47 would run 72"), which had an effect on engine performance.
@0giwan Cool. I did not know about that but that is definitely something I was not aware of. Also it makes sense as the US wasn't under the same pressures that the other countries were under (from attack) so it could make a better gas.
I've read that early on, Wildcat pilots learned to never engage a Zero in a dogfight, because the Zero was much more maneuverable. Instead, the Zero was engaged in a "game of chicken," attacked head on. The Wildcat's machinegun & cannon rounds would tear the unarmored Zero to pieces, while the heavily armored Wildcat would survive.
Yes, by the time the improved A6M5 model started test flying in August 1943 it was really late. The F6F Hellcat saw combat not long after in September. The US Marines first started fighting with the F4U Corsair in February 1943. The US Army Air Force's P-38 Lightning was already fighting in the Pacific in late 1942 and would go on to be the service's best performing fighter in the Pacific War. By the time the A6M5 model entered service with the fleet it was 1944 and beyond too late. Not to mention the large cadre of experienced, well trained pilots from the early war era were mostly gone.
Once they worked it ot, the P-40 did quite well against the Zero in New Guinea. Climb, spot the Zero, dive, kill the Zero, keep diving away, climb and repeat. Do not dogfight! That was it. Once this formula was adhered to, the kill rate was quite good.
The "thatch weave" shot down lots of Zeros! A tactic invented by navy pilot Lt Thatch. A pair of fighters would let themselves be jumped by Zeros, then "weave around" back a forth, shooting them down.
The IJA had a comparable fighter in the Ki-43, that followed a similar pattern to the A6M. Starting off the war dominating against Buffalos and P-40s and Hurricanes mainly because of the disparity in combat experience and inflexible Allied flying formations that robbed a three-ship flight of 2/3 of the eyeballs that could be scanning the horizon. And since it was so often mistaken for the Zero, contributing to the reputation of the latter. Then having the tables turned in 1942 and taking staggering losses in that year. But the Ki-43 was built to be flown like a warplane. More so than the Zero, the design of which sacrificed structural integrity in favor of what was clearly, in light of the success of Allied fighters with drop tanks, just a needlessly excessive maximum range. And the Ki-43 received upgrades to improve survivability sooner than the A6M. It was lightly armed, even in later variants, but remained a credible threat late in the war. And about that talk of the "first half" of the war in the Pacific. Coral Sea was in May, and losses in the air were roughly equal in that battle. So we're calling, generously, five months of this titanic struggle half the war? We can include the Sino-Japanese War, but even then, the A6M entered service in July 1940. And even the Flying Tigers wouldn't see their first combat missions until after the attack on Pearl Harbor. It seems like the case for this being the "first half" is based on this being the opening phase of the war where the IJN was on the offensive. But as appropriately-named as Midway is for the turning point of a conflict, I don't know that it helps the reputation of the Zero to narrowly define a few months at the very start of hostilities with the US and the UK as half of the war. And go on to point out that the A6M was dominant for this brief window that was a memory by the time of the first battle with USN carriers.
Fast, light, and maneuverable... At the expense of not being structurally robust... and no "armor" or self-sealing tanks. It didn't take too many bullets to make one disintegrate.
The truth about "how Allies overcome Zero" was brutal. That A6M was already obsolete in 1939 during projecting. Japanese had problems with a high power engines so using Sakae engine of only 940HP forced the resignation from most of "defensive" measurement. It was more like a "paper tiger" then "revolutionalry fighter". It was not the truth that US military was shocked. Grunman was working on "Hellcat" - as Navy fighter for aircraft carriers - from 1938, and the Mustang was in production - land operated aircraft - so military in the USA knew they need replacement of the "Wildcat" sooner than Zero was placed on the engineering board. The only problem US army/navy had, was not enough production level in the factories, to throw enough of Mustangs on the Pacific - during '40-'41 there was policy of "Britain First", so Pacific Region was a little bit forgotten when japanese Kaigun placed almost all Zero's production on the board of carriers.
It may have been outclassed later in the war, but it's still one of the most beautiful planes of the period. I wish that one day I could go for a ride in one. Amazing piece of history!
This surely must be the most controversial opinion by far! I’d say she was rather plain for a plane! Though I do have a bias for bombers I suppose, I’ll support the sentiment. Prop planes were just so classy.
The F6F Hellcat had a P&W R-2800 Double Wasp engine. There was a P&W R-2000, but it was basically an enlarged R-1830 Twin Wasp. Early versions of the R-2800 Double Wasp were rated for 2,000 hp. However, the Hellcat did not have an R-2000 engine.
The Zero did many things very well. But it did not protect it's pilot. It's easier to build an aircraft than train a pilot. And that was Japan's primary weakness.
The zero only appeared dominate until better tatics prevailed. The Flying Tigers in China were highly successful against the zeros cousin (Oscar). Once even better US fighters entered the mix it was game over.
the japanese did not had enough numbers to replace their pilots lost in combat and low production they cant compete with the american industry that was to me the main reason they were defeated and put themselves into desperate tactics like use kamikazes
Well, reciting the usual myths and mistakes here. The Hellcat was designed as a successor to the Wildcat, beginning in 1938, long before the Zero even flew. And even the Mark 1 Spitfire was significantly faster than any Zero, of any variant; the problem early on was that for one there were few available for the far east, and for another that pilots who could have used zoom and boom tactics against Zeros initially made the mistake of trying to turn with them. Once they stopped doing that the Zero was not much of a threat to the Spitfires.
The A6M is a late 1930s tech aircraft with a weak heart and its early jaw dropping combat performance was due to IJN’s veteran pilots and inferior Allied aircraft fleet (Hurricanes and Buffaloes were inferior to it), once Allied forces deployed more advanced aircraft like F4F Wildcat, Spitfire MK IX and P-38 Lightning, A6Ms were no longer that invincible
The A6M was an outstanding fighter at the time of its introduction. For the first 6 months, it was the best carrier borne fighter in the world. That is a fantastic achievement if one thinks about it. To design an aircraft for carrier operations will always introduce an element of compromise, yet the A6M was easily able to best any fighter that it encountered that operated from land. In low-speed dogfights, it excelled. Only after thorough evaluation of captured examples were its flaws and weaknesses revealed. Grumman's F6F Hellcat was specially designed to counteract this amazing design. The term 'Zero' comes from the year of its introduction, 1940. In the Japanese calendar, 1940 was 0, or zero. It holds a very special place in the hearts of the Japanese people as the Spitfire does for British people.
@gvibration1 Unfortunately, armour protection for pilots and self-sealing fuel tanks, or lack of, was a price worth paying for maximum agility. In addition, a lot of experienced pilots, army and navy, who had fought over China also shunned the idea of enclosed canopies. This short-sighted doctrine continued into the early Pacific campaigns, where, as we know, a lot of these experienced pilots were lost and were never replaced.
@massmike11 Yes, a replacement for the F4F was initiated as early as 1938, but after poor results in encountering the A6M by F4Fs, ALL effort was put into designing the F6F to counter the A6M. The F6F was, therefore, indirectly, a response to the A6M.
The Zeros' air superiority was mainly due to the lack of decent aircrafts to contrast them, plus its incredible range that allowed to display them, such as when they were capable to attack the Philipphines from Taiwan.
The zero didn’t have an armoured bathtub for the pilot to sit in like allied aircraft meaning short term gain with less weight but long term loss. The zero had holes drilled in its airframe where strength wasn’t needed reducing the weight. The Americans would fly in pairs so when the zero would pursue one plane that plane would weave and turn meaning the other American plane would have the opportunity to shoot the zero.
In 1977 and 78 i lived below Miami FL on the edge of the Everglades. I got to watch World War 2 aircraft being flimed while flying for movies. A few time there were F4U and Japanese Zero dog fights and other Japanese aircraft. It was cool . Another time I saw a B-17 and P-51 escorts, and a B-29 withh escorts. Where these were flimed is now built-up with houses.
Very simple. The industrial might of the USA enabled the development of planes that could counter the Zero's advantages while taking advantage of weaknesses like the light armor plates and lack of self-sealing gas tanks.
True, plus, how many aircraft did the US produce during 1942-1943? How many flight crews were trained? Compare those numbers to what Japan produced. There was a point where the Japanese started losing too many experienced crews and planes. You can’t go one to one when the other side is making many more than you.
All of the US Army and US Navy fighters that met the Zero in combat were in development or production before Dec 7, 1941. The Zero had little to no effect on those aircraft.
@@martinricardo4503 Your conclusion is not supported by your argument. It would have been negligent of the Navy to ignore the capabilities of the Zero, at least while finishing the design process of planes that were still on the drawing board. I do recognize that some of the crucial differences were cultural.
@@martinricardo4503 Thank you I posted something saying the same thing, for some reason that myth persists and even the video was incorrect about that.
Having flown the aircraft, (and virtually every other fighter both allied and axis), legendary British test pilot Captain Eric 'Winkle' Brown RN said the Zero was the best fighter up until 1943.
@@tonyjames5444 I was privileged to have lunch with him once. He told a story of a Japanese pilot he met who was shot badly in the face flying his Zero still completed the mission and got home. He had a healthy respect for their pilots courage and determination.
One more weakness of the Zero: the fuel tank wasn't self-sealing. So, once the tank was punctured (if it didn't catch on fire), many never made it back to base.
They didn’t get into too much detail with it, but the hellcat was such an incredibly major improvement, that it ended up being the death of japan’s top ace. He used to employ a tactic where he would climb high enough to stall out the previous wildcats, then pursue while they were in an uncontrollable freefall. He did it so often, that it he didn’t pay much attention to the slightly larger airframe following him, and was shot down while climbing to pull off the same ol maneuver. The hellcat didn’t stall out, but instead kept climbing, and faster than the zero. It was a total 180 for the air war, pun half intended.
Teamwork defeated the Zero. Japan's philosophy of Samurai Warriors and individual combat are noble, but not practical in the modern world.Thomas Thatch and Butch O'Hare (for O'Hare Airport) invented the "Thatch Weave." In no time US Naval Air Forces dominated the Pacific War. Americans are team players.
On first contact the Allies had to swallow their collective pride and us collective tactics like the Thatch weave and Boom and Zoom because of the Zero's better handling and not get into a turning fight with it. Later with the likes of the F6F Hellcat, F4U Corsair, P-51 Mustang and so on it was our fight to dictate.
The shoot and scoot tactics were in use post Battle Of Britain before the US entered the war. Roald Dahl (Charlie And The Chocolate Factory etc author) goes into it a bit in his book, as did Clive Caldwell who, aside being Australias' ace with the highest tally, commanded a RAAF P-40 squadron in North Africa. He taught shoot and scoot was a better bet than a dogfight against 109s which were a superior machine at the time.
The Planes of Fame Air Museum in Chino, California, USA, has a Mitsubishi A6M5 Type 0 Model 52 Reisen, which is the only authentic A6M flying with its original Nakajima Sakae engine. In December 2023 I attended a flying demo of the A6M, and asked the pilot afterwards about the plane. He said that the aircraft controls require only a light touch and that the plane is quite responsive to the pilot. He also mentioned that the A6M does not have a radio, and that he needed to coordinate with the airport tower in advance so that they would know what he planned to do while flying.
@@TexasHoosier3118 yeah, but.. no. Rumpler Taube, Fokker E III, Bristol M1C, Junkers D1, Moraine -Saulnier Type N.. all monoplanes developed and flown in WW1. Although not every was serie-produced and officially adopted for service.
A6M2 Zero was made of what was then a cutting edge and secret alloy which was lighter for the same strength compared to duralumin. This alloy, developed in secret in 1935, wouldn’t be replicated in the U.S. until 1942. We now call it 7075 aluminum alloy, which is widely used in a number of applications. Bike frames, M16 assault rifle receivers, injection molds for plastics, Ford F-150 bodies, and a wide number of modern jet airplanes all use it.
The little F4 seemed to do fine against them at Midway and Guadal channel didn't it once tactics were developed. I personally think the Zero was more a surprise than a great fighter. We completely understand estimated the Japanese and paid for it in the early part of the war.
Wildcats shot down 6.9 Zeros for every Wildcat lost. Yes, F4F Wildcats. The Zero has an outsized legend. Sort of like the Panther, the T-34, and the MG-42.
For lightness, the Zero was built with the fuselage and the wing as a single piece, not bolted together like other planes. This meant that serious damage to a wing meant the entire plane had to be scrapped or returned to the depot to be rebuilt.
Great videos as always. One note on showing the old photographs (such as from 11:30 to 11:50), there’s no need for the artificial shakiness like on old projectors. We know it’s an old photo from the context, the added shaking and grain just makes it harder to focus on the details.
Early in the war Japan was at it's peak in pilot training, fighter performance and numbers while the allies were at their low. A couple years later Japan was headed to their low while the allies were headed to their peak. The same went for Germany. The outcome was inevitable.
They tried, but apart from a couple of excellent land-based fighters (the Ki-84 and N1K2-J) and a decent interceptor (the J2M), things just kept going wrong in development and production.
They did try, even with the Zero as late as 1945. They installed ever more powerful engines in the Zero, topping out with one of just over 1500 hp (for comparison, I think the first series had a 970hp engine). The problem became one of weight; the new engines were far more powerful, but they also continually weighed more. Installing even modest armor plate to protect the plane's vitals and pilot also increased weight. And the Zero had a very, very lightweight airframe, which was perhaps the main reason it was so maneuverable. Increasing power ended up doing almost as much harm to its performance as it did good.
The picture at 13:47 is amazing / horrifyingly. Took me a second to see exactly what’s going on. Some of the sailors look so nonchalant - clearly they do t know what’s about to occur.
That’s the USS Missouri and the plane for the most part missed the ship, and the bomb didn’t go off. There were no casualties on the ship or any major damage. They actually recovered the pilot’s body and held a funeral at sea for him. You can still see the dent from the impact on the ship today. It’s only a 2 foot long slightly deformed deck edge.
How did the Allies overcome the Zero fighter? "Shot and scoot" and "one pass, haul ass" tactics, developed by the US Marines in the dark early days of the Guadalcanal campaign. Edit: They also emphasized gunnery, perfecting the maximum deflection high-side pass shooting that was so effective,
The Commonwealth had been doing the same well before Guadalcanal. Ace Clive Caldwell in his book describes the same tactics used in North Africa. Even the famous childrens author (and ace) Roald Dahl said in his book "Going Solo" they did one pass tactics due to lessons learned from the Battle Of Britain. This was nearly two years before the USA even entered the war.
@@peterrobbins2862 Democracy is a real pain in the ass sometimes, FDR wanted to get the US into the war right from the start but he didn't have the power to do it. He bent and broke a lot of laws and if you research it it's actually pretty funny how much he cheated.
We have Flight Officer Tadayoshi Kaga to thank- although his gift was certainly not given willingly. FO Koga was a pilot from one of the smaller Japanese carriers that covered the landings on Attu and Kiska in the Aleutian Islands chain. Koga's Zero was hit by ground fire and was unable to make it back to his carrier. Japanese pilots were ordered not to allow their planes to fall into the hands of the enemy intact, so Koga, spotting what he thought was a grassy strip on an island, thought to land and then destroy his airplane. The grassy strip turned out to be long grass covering water. When the Zero touched down, it flipped over, breaking FO Koga's neck. The Zero itself was practically undamaged, and, once discovered by American airmen, it was quickly recovered, transported back to the mainland and repaired so it could undergo thorough flight testing.
I didn't know the whole story so that was pretty cool, thanks. They did make one mistake in the otherwise good video, the Hellcat wasn't designed because we had an intact Zero it had been researched and developed long before that and was almost ready for distribution at that point. For some reason that myth persists, the Zero they found had Zero to do wifh the Hellcat's development. It did however, help us to develop better tactics to combat it.
Like every other sector of weapons development in WW2, the US knew exactly what was needed. Whether it was a better rifle, boots, helmet, or ships with incredible amounts of AA fire, or planes - the US was clearly the most innovative and productive of all countries in the war. Many are unaware that America only had about 200,000 men in the entire US Army and no tanks as late as 1939, when the whole world was already at war. We had no planes that were considered up to date. The B-17 did not even have a rear gun mount. No country leveled up faster and more effectively than the US, and by 1943 had far outclassed the Japanese Empire in all phases of war materiel, and weapons. Yamamoto was right when he predicted that he would run rampant for 6 months. After that, America would prevail.
Great, informative video. Many thanks for the final information about the USS Bunker Hill being the worst damaged (Kamikaze) US navy ship of WWII. Many mistaken videos regarding the USS Franklin, another Essex Class carrier being damaged by a level bomber that dropped two bomb causing the horrific damage to the Franklin. The combination of fueled, bomb laden aircraft, especially the SB2C dive bombers with Tiny Tim rockets that cooked off also contributed to the conflagration. My father served on the Bunker Hill, witnessed the Franklin burning on the horizon. Wounded by smoke inhalation, during the kamikaze attack 11 May 1945
One small point, it’s actually a common myth that kamikaze pilots only had enough fuel for a one way trip, if the weather required them to abort they needed to be able to return to try again. Some pilots returned multiple times from kamikaze missions (though too many returns was suspicious).
Presumably it would only be suspicious if the other pilots didn't come back due to bad weather as well.
Also extra fuel = moar kablooie
Initially the pilots were given enough fuel for round trips because they were hunting for targets at long ranges, say from Okinawa to somewhere among the many islands and inlets of the Philippines. As the war progressed there was less aviation fuel available and the targets were closer as the American and British fleets closed on the home islands.
'If at first you don't succeed'?
@@senianns9522 ‘…you can’t try again because you’re dead.’
A Hurricane pilot claimed that one method was to go into a high speed dive and pull out as low as possible at the greatest air speed which the Hurricane could take but would crumple the tailling Zero as it tried to pull out as it lacked the Hurricane's strength to endure the G forces.
F4Fs and P-40s could do that, too.
Not totally correct, at high speed the controls on the A6M became extremely heavy. This is most likely what happened.
The Zero simply couldn't dive at the speeds other aircraft could.
The "Never exceed speed" of the A6M was relatively low at 370 mph (600 kph).
A6M's are structurally superior to a Hawker Hurricane. The A6M, and Japan, were the first to invent & use 7075 duralumin, which is present in every AR-15/M16 receiver & aircraft structural stress points today. In other words, it is very strong and very light. For comparison US/Uk fighters used obsolete 30 series aluminum. As soon as the Allies reverse engineered an A6M they began to use this material extensively but mostly after the war.
do not confuse armor & structural rigidity like so many other armchair historians.
Also fun fact, if you just say "Hurricane" you could be possibly referring to the notorious Ki-84 Hayate (or Hurricane in Japanese). A late war fighter that not many Allied fighters could match. More used than an A6M by 1944.
The Australians learnt early on to not dogfight the Zero. They would fly their Kittyhawks up in the direction of the sun and gain altitude above what the Japanese typically flew. Then circle up there where it was hard for them to be spotted by the Japanese. If any Zeros flew under them, they would dive and unload everything on them and then zoom through them and out the other side and keep on going low to the deck and fly away. The speed they built up in the dive along with the surprise made it very hard for the Japanese pilots to catch them. The heavy armament of the Kittyhawk, combined with the lack of self sealing fuel tanks and little armour of the Zero, meant if they scored a hit on a Zero in the dive, it probably would result in a kill. It may not of been elegant, but it gave the superior firepower of the Kittyhawk the best chance of success and the Australian pilots a chance to fly another day.. Dog fighting the Zero often lead to the Aussies being shot down as the Zero was the superior plane in the early parts of the Pacific war and Japan still had experienced pilots at that point who could fly them well. Australians learnt to catch the Zero's unprepared and strike their airfields and take them out before they could fly. Both proved effective.
Boom and zoom.
@@kasvos9292 Yes. the Zero was beaten in two stages. First, they learned tactics to defeat the Zero w/o getting caught up in the turn fight, because you didn't turn-fight a Zero and live at that point. Second, they built fighters that made the Zero obsolete, and trained their pilots to fly to their advantages, not the Zero's advantages.
If they did try to follow, they became sitting ducks for your top cover due to the poor aileron authority at high speed, an area where Allied aircraft were generally still maneuverable thanks to control tabs and, eventually, boosted flight controls.
You could absolutely win a turning fight with a Zero if you were going fast enough. Even the P-38 turned faster at particularly high speeds than the Zero. You get your wingman to lure them into a dive and then break right and you could get on their tail and stay there. Even if you got right down to the deck, you could avoid being jumped by the rest of the Zeros simply by firewalling the throttle. Even if they managed to land a couple of potshots, you could take it.
Excellent documentary! I understand it could have been longer by hours and not include all the important information.
@@Lurch-Bot The turning circle is actually far greater at higher speed for a given G loading, if you want to turn tight you need to slow down, not go faster, this is why so many pilots getting caught in a valley die when trying to turn back, because they don’t slow down to reduce the turning radius. I have visited the site in Brisbane where captured Zeros were dissected and also flown by allied pilots against our fighters, this was where a lot of the tactics were developed to defeat the Zero with a sound understanding of its flaws.
If anyone wants a complete analysis of the Zero, go watch Drachinifel's 2 and a half hour video about the Zero where he interviews a man (whose name I can't remember) who is an absolute encyclopedia about the Zero. It's a wonderful, detailed, precise, and no nonsense BS description of the story of the Zero. An absolute must.
Greg's Airplanes and Automobiles does a fantastic job with his video on the Wildcat vs Zero.
Incomplete. We need a part 2 with all the nerdy discussion on the engines
@@Wha2les 👉🏻 the channel 'real engeneering' has a good video on the zero
"But, ultimately the kamikaze campaign did not have a significant impact on the course of the war." WRONG. The kamikaze campaign got Japan NUKED. Twice. The third bomb would have been dropped on Hirohito's Palace had Japan not surrendered, and that point was made very clear to the Japanese Emperor. I would call that "significant." Final point? If you look at the list of Japanese pilots who took park in both the battles at Pearl Harbor and Midway, you will find that the vast majority of them did not survive the war. The young pilots who replaced them were also shot out of the sky during the campaign in the Marianas (Saipan). The life expectancy of an Imperial Japanese pilot was very short.
@@Damorann love that channels vids. So in depth
The Zero went from hero to zero quickly. Thanks for the war history!
I think you really have to focus on the highly trained and veteran Japanese pilots who had been in active war for 4 and half years when the Pacific War started. Pilot experience and numbers account for most of the difference even before we look at the machines.
@@maemorri It's a big factor, but the lack of development during the war on the Japanese side is what ultimately became their downfall. the A6M was in use from 1939 all the way till 1945. Still being made in 1945... F6Fs were prodiced from 1942-1945 which were 3 years superior
Like every plane it had its day. The later spitfires were totally different planes from the mark 2 and 5. Also the fritz was not the emil
@@patrickporter1864 But they managed to keep the Spitfire maneuverable as it put on weight and got faster. The BF.109 just became a sh*t plane. The FW.190 didn't fare much better. The real issue was likely the fact that the Allies had the resources to spare for things like hydraulic controls, while the Germans were mainly focused on shooting down bombers and producing as many fighters as possible later in the war. So climb performance and armament were prioritized at the expense of handling.
Late in the war, the Nazis faced a similar problem to shooting down enemy fighters as the Allies faced with the Zero early in the war. The main difference was that Allied aircraft weren't Molotov cocktails with wings.
@@maemorriThat’s actually the reason US pilots were better by the end of the war. The US had a policy that we would swap out our top pilots to train new recruits. The Japanese just kept all their best aviators on the battlefield until they died. This resulted in the best US pilots still being around at the end of the war while the average US recruit was superior to even experienced Japanese pilots. However, it did result in significant victories for the Japanese early in the war.
Remember also the Americans developed the proximity AA shell, which used a very simple crude radar to detonate. It made their AA fire vastly more effective as they only had to get their shells reasonably near enemy aircraft and height settings were no longer required. As a result, if a fragile Zero went anywhere near a US ship it's chances were poor.
It was called a VT proximity fuze. It was only radar in the sense of detecting reflected radio waves. I believe it detonated when the rate of change in the beat frequency between the transmitted signal and received signal hit a minimum. Increased kill ratio by about 400%. Made in huge quantities, but only used over the open ocean for most of the war, to prevent disclosure. I believe the small vacuum tubes survived 20,000 gees during firing due to being packed in oil.
@@afterthesmash made by Crosley in Cincinnati Ohio. They were so secret, they were transported from the factory at night in bread trucks.
This is so much better than the notoriously poor 'Dark Skies' nonsense.
@fredenmy I watch that channel for laughs.
And his over paced breathless voice is so annoying
@@fredemny3304 Couldn’t agree more - Dark Skies, Dark Seas….Dark anything is simply inaccurate, poorly researched and badly narrated rubbish. When I see Dark anything in my feed, I head the other way.
Pretty sure the "Dark XXX" channels are copycat channels. Their content often mirror new stuff coming out within weeks of actually good channels publishing new subjects.
@@Damorann He is quite the scammer! And annoying as hell.
I loved that Max Hastings was on here. The Secret War taught me so much about espionage that I still think about all the time.
Max 'Hitler' Hastings.
So nice to hear a good narration instead of the awful AI robots on other sites 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
Love your videos. The more the better!
I’ll support IWM as long as I can.
Cheers from across the pond
The Zero's strengths were also its weaknesses. As long as its opponents did not out speed it, the Zero won but once Allied fighters got faster it lost.
Its near total lack of armour or self sealing fuel tanks made it easy to flame it with a short burst which other aircraft could shrug off
It was fast and agile because it was built like a cherry blossom, and they died like cherry blossoms too.
I remember with horror finding out that the glider tug transport aircraft used during the invasion of Sicily didn't have self sealing tanks, and how that likely contributed to some crews releasing their gliders too early.
But the idea of a fighter lacking them in 1944-45 is a whole other level, though.
It's so refreshing to get a well researched and well narrated WW2 video these days. It makes a welcome change from the usual lazy dross that seems to be prevalent on TH-cam at the moment. Well done! 👍
Well maybe if you watched good stuff instead of AI generated dribble... Here's a hint... if you watch rubbish... youtube will only show you rubbish.
It is the actual imperial war museum so it's to be expected
I thought the narration was really good in this one. Interesting topic too, thanks.
The Aeronautical building of the Smithsonian, on the National Mall, has a Zero splayed out on a wall, and an American fighter of the period, perhaps a Hellcat, hanging in the stairwell, ominously in its range.
The Zero is delicate, even beautiful. It carried no armour.
The American fighter is a lumbering hulk -- and it's clear that the Zero was out of its class
You can see that on the Depth of the windshield Armour.
The Hellcat was such a "lumbering hulk" that it had a 19/1 kill ratio against the Japanese.
@@johngregory4801 who said a lumbering hulk is a bad thing? US aircraft were indeed much larger and bulkier than the competition but had the power to back it up
Have you ever seen the Zero next to a Hellcat or Corsair it almost looks like a toy. I love the Zero though, it's a beautiful plane and very deadly in the hands of a good pilot.
The wildcat may be called a lumbering hulk. The hellcat was more armored but also more maneuverable due to a much larger engine.
That "lumbering hulk" would fly circles around you.😅😂🤣😂😅
General Chennault tired warning the US military about the capabilities of the Zero. The Chinese even captured one.
Unfortunately, Chennault had made so many enemies in the Air Corp that no one believed his reports.
. . . . but never told anyone else?
The Chinese recovered a mildly crash landed Zero and returned it to flying condition. Several AVG pilots flew it and analyzed its capabilities. This was long before the Alaskan Zero was discovered. That the US AAC was oblivious to it is simply another check mark on the incredibly long list of Army Air Corps stupidities and delusional arrogant mistakes. Only US manufacturing overwhelming volume prevented the US Army from losing the war.
Chennault didn't actually come up against any Mitsubishi A6M Zero. It was the Nakajima Ki-43 Oscar he faced. The two types looked alike but the Oscars were flown by the Japanese Army in China where Chennault's pilots were.
The Whole Zero found in the Aleutian islands was the death of the Zero!!
It's typical case of a highly specialised weapon being excellent in the use scenario it was made for, and terrible in completely different conditions.
A critical improvement on the American side was the development of a 50mm round specially designed to take down the Zero. The conventional rounds at the start of WWII would pass right through the paper thin skin of the Zero leaving a minimal hole.
My father was in charge of a DuPont powder plant during WWII. He showed me an example of this round. It had a flat tip which would slow the round slightly as is hit the skin of the aircraft. This caused a cylinder to hit a blasting cap igniting an enclosed explosive. This explosive had a high brisance similar to black powder. Essentially it would all explode at once. The effect was to take off an entire wing or tail of the Zero with even a marginal hit. So it was no longer necessary to hit the pilot or fuel tank.
The US did not employ 50mm weaponry during in the Pacific for AA in any appreciable capacity.
@@thestormofwar This was 50 caliber, not 50 mm. I held an example of the round in my hand. The triggering mechanism involved a metal disk that rested in a groove within a cylinder in the head of the bullet. The gyroscopic action of the spinning bullet caused the disk to float to the center of the cylinder. The slightest slowing of the round would cause the disk to slam forward setting off the blast.
The Zero was a beautiful aircraft, it could handle extremely well, it had a long range etc Wow Max Hastings as well!
Its main problems where tin can build that was damaged easily and controls that stiffened up in a dive it also wasn’t particularly fast
"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve." May or may not have been uttered by Admiral Yamamoto, but it rings true. The Allies studied the Zero, and built vastly improved aircraft to counter it as well as the aircraft of the Luftwaffe.
Their capabilities were pretty well known pre war. A German who happened to be a Jewish designer for Heinkel took a job with Mitsubishi designing the Zero predecessor to escape Germany. As the war kicked off in Europe he fled to Australia and became the father of the Boomerang. Not that it was much of a fighter itself given it was an emergency fighter but more so he went from conception to first flight in under three months. Importantly his knowledge of Japanese fighter designs was a huge haul for the Allies.
Except by the time the"vastly improved aircraft to counter it" was built and actually deployed the war was long since over... A fact a lot of people seem to forget...
Yamamoto had studied in America and was well aware of its industrial capacity. Even though America had massively disarmed.
He was right. 😢Japanese knew they had to knock out the capability in Hawaii and cut America off from Australia as a base they could use to assemble and hit back. Before the fortification of the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere was complete.
They got close.
Brenton, the Corsair and Hellcat both available in 1943 were miles better than the Zero.
@@Samuel-hd3cp Yeah the END of 1943.... Was when the FIRST delivery of F6Fs were delivered... what year did they start the attack again? Japan had been on the retreat for close to a year by the time the F6F appeared in wide enough use and a lot of the more "skilled" (which i use that term losely) japanese pilots had already started taking irreplaceable losses. And ya know... Midway? The F6F did not change the war. It was merely another piece in the puzzle. the F4F did the job once they actually got more than 0 experience against the Japanese.
I had the opportunity to film U.S. Navy Commander (later Admiral) John "Jimmy' Thach and he described the tactic that he developed to combat the agile A6M Zero while flying the markedly inferior U.S. Navy F4F Wildcat. That tactic was named the "Thatch Weave".
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thach_Weave
Additionally, Claire Chennault of the Flying Tiger espoused tactics that allowed the inferior P-40 Warhawk aircraft to compete on a relatively level field with the Zero. This tactic was composed of high speed slashing dives and absolutely no dog fighting.
The Zero had higher speed than the F4F or Warhawk that opposed them early in the war (however it could not dive as fast as the Widcat or the Warhawk). It was also far more agile and had a longer range. However, the Zero had no armor and no self-sealing fuel tanks.
The Flying Tigers most likely never fought against any Zeros as they were withdrawn from China when they were in theater. Historians say that they rarely , if ever, fought against them, and most of them say they didn't fight any of them. It was mostly Ki-27s and Ki-43s (Nates and Oscars) and other aircraft other Zeros. The Wildcat wasn't really that outclassed once our pilots gained some experience and we learned the correct tactics.
I find it interesting that the Wildcat is called 'inferior' while achieving a 1:1 kill ratio versus the Zero prior to the F6F Hellcats coming to the fleet.
This gets a sub from me. It's surprisingly complete and accurate for a subject and touches on multiple reasons that all added up to the why the Zero eventually got outclassed. Nice work.
The A6M was not faster than the F4F or Hurricane. Where it was superior was in maneuverability and rate of climb. It may also have accelerated faster. The crucial key to its early dominance was in pilot quality and Allied pilots unknowingly playing to the A6M's strengths (being equipped with obsolescent aircraft like the P-35 and P-36 didn't help). As USN pilots learned and IJN fighter squadron pilots were attrited, the F4F began to do fairly well. The F6F out-performed the A6M, and USN pilots' and squadrons' better training left the A6M outclassed. The A6M's expendability as a Kamikaze was more due to the low training level of IJN pilots than to the aging of the A6M.
and late war P-40N and P-39Q others had superior climb rate. they could be upgraded, the Zero could not.
Even the SBD was used for CAP to defend carriers in Coral Sea, Santa Cruz, Midway, etc. and even shot down attacking zeroes. Multiple SBD pilots became aces.
Yeah a lot of this video is full of incorrect info. The IJA had the Ki-61 which was their equivalent of the Zero. It was not the fastest plane at the time. Honestly this video has a made for TV boomer vibe that doesn't hook me. Also the Zero had many variants throughout the years of the war and the IJN was adopting new frames near the end of the war.
@@DisinformationAgent the Ki-43 was more of the IJA Zero.
The Zero experienced almost no real improvement over the war as a consequence of its design. they removed too much structure to save weight, preventing them from ever upgrading to bigger heavier engines. Most later variants actually got worse, as they kept adding weight but no additional HP.
Even Japan's fastest operational fighter plane of WW2 was slower than the P-40.
The other advantage of the A6M was its incredible range due to its very light weight. The Americans initially thought they must have had bases all over the place, as the zero could travel very far from its base.
🤣 I'm a "Boomer". I understand having to choose details to fit a time limit, but this video took over-simplification into inaccuracy.
While all Japanese planes were lost at Midway (except for some cruiser-based floatplanes), pilot losses were less severe. The BIG loss for the IJN was the loss of 4 of its 6 most capable carriers. These losses plus Shokaku being in repair and Zuikaku having to re-form its air group gave the USN a window of opportunity to take the initiative at Guadalcanal.
Japan missed an opportunity by not sending out scout planes at Pearl Harbor. Japan made a mistake by not sending all 6 carriers to Coral Sea. Japan made a mistake by not bringing the Zuikaku and the 3 smaller aircraft carriers to Midway.
One mistake by the IJN. When a carrier was damaged, its pilots stayed with the ship. Unlike the USN. When a carrier was damaged or in for maintenance, the pilots were moved to the operational ones. Also, they didn't make any effort to save downed pilots. The Japanese pilots knew if their plane was damaged to the point that there was no way to make it back, they were dead! That's why they would crash into ships even early in the war.
It was at Guadalcanal where Japan foolishly squandered their best pilots. Nothing like having carrier pilots along with the rest of your best pilots flying 8 hour missions where they had very limited time to actually fight and if their plane was damaged shot down the pilots were sure to die. That was one of the most foolish decisions they made in the entire war (to me).
I'm sure that arriving at the engagement area after over 3 hours of flight and having to pay attention to your fuel level did not enhance IJN pilots' effectiveness. Fighting far from base meant many pilots would be lost if shot down or their planes succumbed to damage during the return flight. The IJN was not good at rescuing downed pilots nor at rotating pilots home to form the core of new squadrons.
@@petestorz172 It was actually 4 hours each way plus the amount of time they stayed to fight/bomb which was dependent on whether or not they could somehow refuel them at one of their other island bases closer than Rabaul. They suffered from a lack of fuel, spare parts, and especially competent mechanics. Those long missions took a severe toll on the shape their planes were in also. Their shortage of competent mechanics was so bad that I remember reading how the troops who overran Japanese airfields were amazed at the amount of lightly damaged aircraft they couldn't use and that they just didn't cannibalize the more damaged aircraft so the others could be used, they weren't capable of that simple (for the US) feat which could have made a difference in some of the battles.
Actually, the Hellcat was powered by a Pratt & Whitney R2800 (not an R2000). Most variants of the R 2800 were rated at about 2000 hp.
A concise and efficient telling of the story. Thank you.
The "Mitsubishi A6M Zero" is my favorite aircraft that was used by an Axis power. Thanks for covering it!
I only recently heard that there was another factor, not mention here. The fact that the USN planes were armoured and that a downed pilot had SAR resources available, meant that the pilots that survived and came back into action had time to review their mistakes and learn from them. Indeed, to teach new pilots what those mistakes were and how to avoid them.
Got a Zero in July 1942, but the first intact Zero was obtained in February 1942 from Bathurst Island, north of Darwin. I read, somewhere, it was used at Brisbane to prepare pilots before going to New Guinea.
The Hellcat!!!!❤❤ And superior training and experience by that point.
"The eager are not experienced and the experienced are not eager".
US pilot referring to Japanese pilots and lack of competition late in the war.
The Zeros were defeated before the first Hellcats appeared operationally.
@@martinricardo4503 It was almost ready for distribution by the time the Zero was found, restored, and tested, for some stupid reason that myth persists.
@@martinricardo4503 I'll put it another way, the Zero had zero to do with with the Hellcat.
The gap in training, experience and numbers explains most of the Zero's early advantage.
Firstly, losing almost 70% of it's experienced pilots at Midway pretty much stuck a sock in the entire Imperial Japanese air arm, Army and Navy. As the skill level of Allied pilots increased, the skill level of IJ pilots plummeted. This made it correspondingly easy to develop tactics against them.
Secondly the IJ had much the same pilot rotation policy as the Luftwaffe. That policy was 'fly until you die'. Once placed in a operational squadron, a Japanese pilot flew until they were demonstrably unable to fly anymore, either through death or severe injury. But Allied pilots were routinely rotated back to training billets to teach their knowledge to a new class of junior birdmen and those junior birdmen were therefore learning the right things even if they didn't always have the high number of hours in type that their first squadron commanders hoped they would.
Lastly, Japanese industry was strangled by the Allied blockade. While new designs were sometimes trotted out [and, fair being fair, some pretty good ones], the A6M didn't get the necessary development it needed to stay competitive with a] more and better skilled Allied pilots, b] better Allied aircraft designs, and c] the flood of Allied ships and aircraft.
USN pilots were also guided back to their carriers by the YE-ZB homing radio beacons. It was a secured, and easy-to-use all-weather navigation tool and saved many US pilots from the danger of ditching into the vast Pacific. The British adopted this technology for their carriers later in the war. One can only wonder how many IJN pilots were lost at sea when they couldn't find a moving carrier after a long range mission.
The Japanese needed to continually upgrade the power plant to allow armor and self sealing tanks as upgrades but this wasn't a priority.
Japan's lack of a training program for replacement pilots was a glaring failure
Very informative and interesting presentation.... Thank you IWM.... Roger... Pembrokeshire
It's crazy what you can create when you have zero regard for the pilot.
You mean like the Me 163?
@@Lurch-Bot Exactly, a fighter that runs on toxic fuel that killed more pilots on the tarmac than in combat is another great example.
What a pleasure to see noted history writer Max Hastings! I appreciate the depth of your research and your narration.
Auckland's War Memorial Museum has a Zero in immaculate condition.
Nice presentation. @9:24, All Series production Grumman F6F Hellcat's were produced with the impeccable Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp.
My grandpa was an aviation machinist mate in the USN during WWII and he probably overhauled a thousand of 'em during the war. I have a picture of him posing with a freshly overhauled R-2800 about to be hung on a Hellcat.
Superb video. Thank you.
So cool Max Hastings had a cameo in this video. Love his books on WWII
My brother bought a new Mitsubishi his father in law says the problem with them is a hellcat will out dive it.
Jesus himself took the stick and ended the infidel threat....read it online so let's face we all know that's fact no matter what
When you jump the tracks, the Hellcat will nosedive due to being very nose heavy.
Fantastic video! Thank you so much 👍
Most excellent video most of the footage you've shoune I've never seen before .
I know this may be a small thing, but still I will point it out. At 9:25- it’s actually the R-2800 that was called the Double Wasp, which was also used in the P-47 Thunderbolt and F4U Corsair.
Two things to mention that the video does not.
First off, to get that range, the Zero pilot would run the fuel mixture as LEAN as he could going to and from the area he was going to fight in. Charles Lindbergh did this when he flew "The Spirit of St Louis" across the Atlantic Ocean and taught this to P-38 Lightning pilots that effectively DOUBLED the range of that aircraft. For those who don't understand, running an engine lean makes it more fuel efficient but it significantly decreases performance. This is done by limiting how much oxygen the engine takes in. Once in combat you make the gas mixture rich so you can get more performance (speed and power) out of that same engine.
The second thing is that once a pilot was trained by the Imperial Japanese Navy they were left out in the theater for combat. What happened with the US Navy and Marines (they were doing the most fighting the Japanese along the Army Air Corps) was once they gained experience many were rotated back to the US to train the next cadre of pilots going out to the Pacific to fight. So what happened as time went on, the Japanese lost their best pilots and the US got better and better quality pilots fresh from the States. After "The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot" in 1944, the Japanese quality of pilots was so diminished that poorly trained pilots had to be rushed out to combat and they did not last long. If memory serves it was less than five missions for them.
The fuel is limited, not the air.
I doubt doubling.
But interesting points.
@kiereluurs1243
Well, the book was on the Lightning and it said that with drop tanks and running the engines lean, it basically doubled the range. No hyperbole, not stretch, just a fact that always stuck with me. The original range was from the manufacturer running the mixture rich without drop tanks.
@@kiereluurs1243 I was about to make the same comment, that the US had enough fuel to give its pilots so many training hours.
Concerning fuel, another fact that I find FASCINATING is the quality of American fuel. German av gas was like 89 and 100 octane, maybe 120 at the most (and most rare). US av gas, by comparison, was like 130 or 150 octane by late war. This means that US aircraft could run jaw-dropping manifold pressures (like the P-47 would run 72"), which had an effect on engine performance.
@0giwan
Cool. I did not know about that but that is definitely something I was not aware of. Also it makes sense as the US wasn't under the same pressures that the other countries were under (from attack) so it could make a better gas.
9:23 No, it was a Pratt & Whitney R-2800 engine. 18 cylinder double row
I've read that early on, Wildcat pilots learned to never engage a Zero in a dogfight, because the Zero was much more maneuverable. Instead, the Zero was engaged in a "game of chicken," attacked head on. The Wildcat's machinegun & cannon rounds would tear the unarmored Zero to pieces, while the heavily armored Wildcat would survive.
The Wildcat didn't have cannon, just .50 cal machine guns.
Oh my, I'm getting flashbacks to when the History Channel actually did shows about history, especially a lot of WW2 stuff. I do miss that.
Good ol' Max Hastings!
Yes, by the time the improved A6M5 model started test flying in August 1943 it was really late. The F6F Hellcat saw combat not long after in September. The US Marines first started fighting with the F4U Corsair in February 1943. The US Army Air Force's P-38 Lightning was already fighting in the Pacific in late 1942 and would go on to be the service's best performing fighter in the Pacific War.
By the time the A6M5 model entered service with the fleet it was 1944 and beyond too late. Not to mention the large cadre of experienced, well trained pilots from the early war era were mostly gone.
Once they worked it ot, the P-40 did quite well against the Zero in New Guinea. Climb, spot the Zero, dive, kill the Zero, keep diving away, climb and repeat. Do not dogfight! That was it. Once this formula was adhered to, the kill rate was quite good.
Good video. Needed to include more on the decline of IJN pilot quality and the USN's systematic training of new pilots by combat experienced pilots.
The "thatch weave" shot down lots of Zeros! A tactic invented by navy pilot Lt Thatch. A pair of fighters would let themselves be jumped by Zeros, then "weave around" back a forth, shooting them down.
The IJA had a comparable fighter in the Ki-43, that followed a similar pattern to the A6M. Starting off the war dominating against Buffalos and P-40s and Hurricanes mainly because of the disparity in combat experience and inflexible Allied flying formations that robbed a three-ship flight of 2/3 of the eyeballs that could be scanning the horizon. And since it was so often mistaken for the Zero, contributing to the reputation of the latter. Then having the tables turned in 1942 and taking staggering losses in that year.
But the Ki-43 was built to be flown like a warplane. More so than the Zero, the design of which sacrificed structural integrity in favor of what was clearly, in light of the success of Allied fighters with drop tanks, just a needlessly excessive maximum range. And the Ki-43 received upgrades to improve survivability sooner than the A6M. It was lightly armed, even in later variants, but remained a credible threat late in the war.
And about that talk of the "first half" of the war in the Pacific. Coral Sea was in May, and losses in the air were roughly equal in that battle. So we're calling, generously, five months of this titanic struggle half the war? We can include the Sino-Japanese War, but even then, the A6M entered service in July 1940. And even the Flying Tigers wouldn't see their first combat missions until after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
It seems like the case for this being the "first half" is based on this being the opening phase of the war where the IJN was on the offensive. But as appropriately-named as Midway is for the turning point of a conflict, I don't know that it helps the reputation of the Zero to narrowly define a few months at the very start of hostilities with the US and the UK as half of the war. And go on to point out that the A6M was dominant for this brief window that was a memory by the time of the first battle with USN carriers.
Fast, light, and maneuverable... At the expense of not being structurally robust... and no "armor" or self-sealing tanks.
It didn't take too many bullets to make one disintegrate.
The truth about "how Allies overcome Zero" was brutal.
That A6M was already obsolete in 1939 during projecting.
Japanese had problems with a high power engines so using Sakae engine of only 940HP forced the resignation from most of "defensive" measurement.
It was more like a "paper tiger" then "revolutionalry fighter".
It was not the truth that US military was shocked. Grunman was working on "Hellcat" - as Navy fighter for aircraft carriers - from 1938, and the Mustang was in production - land operated aircraft - so military in the USA knew they need replacement of the "Wildcat" sooner than Zero was placed on the engineering board.
The only problem US army/navy had, was not enough production level in the factories, to throw enough of Mustangs on the Pacific - during '40-'41 there was policy of "Britain First", so Pacific Region was a little bit forgotten when japanese Kaigun placed almost all Zero's production on the board of carriers.
It may have been outclassed later in the war, but it's still one of the most beautiful planes of the period. I wish that one day I could go for a ride in one. Amazing piece of history!
This surely must be the most controversial opinion by far! I’d say she was rather plain for a plane! Though I do have a bias for bombers I suppose, I’ll support the sentiment. Prop planes were just so classy.
The F6F Hellcat had a P&W R-2800 Double Wasp engine. There was a P&W R-2000, but it was basically an enlarged R-1830 Twin Wasp. Early versions of the R-2800 Double Wasp were rated for 2,000 hp. However, the Hellcat did not have an R-2000 engine.
Mainly because IJN dropped the development of the amazing A7M Reppu.
The Zero did many things very well. But it did not protect it's pilot. It's easier to build an aircraft than train a pilot. And that was Japan's primary weakness.
It didn't help that the Japanese war criminals took a year and a half to train a pilot lol
Great presentation, nice job
The zero only appeared dominate until better tatics prevailed. The Flying Tigers in China were highly successful against the zeros cousin (Oscar). Once even better US fighters entered the mix it was game over.
And the allies had more aircraft
8:42 Even if it doesn't blow up, does it run out of fuel and ditch into the ocean with its pilot?
Amazing story and actual footage here.
the japanese did not had enough numbers to replace their pilots lost in combat and low production they cant compete with the american industry that was to me the main reason they were defeated and put themselves into desperate tactics like use kamikazes
It's interesting to ponder that if the Japanese decided to use those tactics early in the war it could've been devastating for us.
Well, reciting the usual myths and mistakes here. The Hellcat was designed as a successor to the Wildcat, beginning in 1938, long before the Zero even flew. And even the Mark 1 Spitfire was significantly faster than any Zero, of any variant; the problem early on was that for one there were few available for the far east, and for another that pilots who could have used zoom and boom tactics against Zeros initially made the mistake of trying to turn with them. Once they stopped doing that the Zero was not much of a threat to the Spitfires.
Thanks for this.. we have a Japanese Zero plane here in a museum👍🇳🇿✈️
Damn.. was watching casually.. then comes Max Hastings, best ww2 history writer, you got my attention..
I read that the Zero lacked armour plating, and did not have self-sealing fuel tanks. This meant that it could not withstand much gunfire
The A6M is a late 1930s tech aircraft with a weak heart and its early jaw dropping combat performance was due to IJN’s veteran pilots and inferior Allied aircraft fleet (Hurricanes and Buffaloes were inferior to it), once Allied forces deployed more advanced aircraft like F4F Wildcat, Spitfire MK IX and P-38 Lightning, A6Ms were no longer that invincible
The A6M was an outstanding fighter at the time of its introduction. For the first 6 months, it was the best carrier borne fighter in the world. That is a fantastic achievement if one thinks about it. To design an aircraft for carrier operations will always introduce an element of compromise, yet the A6M was easily able to best any fighter that it encountered that operated from land. In low-speed dogfights, it excelled. Only after thorough evaluation of captured examples were its flaws and weaknesses revealed. Grumman's F6F Hellcat was specially designed to counteract this amazing design. The term 'Zero' comes from the year of its introduction, 1940. In the Japanese calendar, 1940 was 0, or zero.
It holds a very special place in the hearts of the Japanese people as the Spitfire does for British people.
They could have done something to protect their best pilots.
@gvibration1 Unfortunately, armour protection for pilots and self-sealing fuel tanks, or lack of, was a price worth paying for maximum agility. In addition, a lot of experienced pilots, army and navy, who had fought over China also shunned the idea of enclosed canopies. This short-sighted doctrine continued into the early Pacific campaigns, where, as we know, a lot of these experienced pilots were lost and were never replaced.
The F6F design was begun before we met the zero. Not in response to the zero. Development of the F6F was begun in 1938
@massmike11 Yes, a replacement for the F4F was initiated as early as 1938, but after poor results in encountering the A6M by F4Fs, ALL effort was put into designing the F6F to counter the A6M.
The F6F was, therefore, indirectly, a response to the A6M.
The Zeros' air superiority was mainly due to the lack of decent aircrafts to contrast them, plus its incredible range that allowed to display them, such as when they were capable to attack the Philipphines from Taiwan.
It was very pleasant to see Max Hastings! I enjoy owning several of his books.
The Zero will go down in history as the most over rated fighter of WW2.
There’s been a lot of creators uploading videos about the Zero recently has something happened recently?
For a plane they tend to consider useless, the Zero Is pretty famous.
The zero didn’t have an armoured bathtub for the pilot to sit in like allied aircraft meaning short term gain with less weight but long term loss. The zero had holes drilled in its airframe where strength wasn’t needed reducing the weight. The Americans would fly in pairs so when the zero would pursue one plane that plane would weave and turn meaning the other American plane would have the opportunity to shoot the zero.
At Pearl Harbour, those zero pilots were the best season pilots from the war with China. Battle hardened and was eager for action.
In 1977 and 78 i lived below Miami FL on the edge of the Everglades. I got to watch World War 2 aircraft being flimed while flying for movies.
A few time there were F4U and Japanese Zero dog fights and other Japanese aircraft. It was cool . Another time I saw a B-17 and P-51 escorts, and a B-29 withh escorts.
Where these were flimed is now built-up with houses.
@@cyclenut that's cool if they were real Zeros, but T-6 Texans were often used to portray Zeros in movies.
@riffhammeron I was 14/15 and all I saw was them in the air, nothing more. So you may be right. Thanks.
Very simple. The industrial might of the USA enabled the development of planes that could counter the Zero's advantages while taking advantage of weaknesses like the light armor plates and lack of self-sealing gas tanks.
True, plus, how many aircraft did the US produce during 1942-1943? How many flight crews were trained? Compare those numbers to what Japan produced. There was a point where the Japanese started losing too many experienced crews and planes. You can’t go one to one when the other side is making many more than you.
All of the US Army and US Navy fighters that met the Zero in combat were in development or production before Dec 7, 1941. The Zero had little to no effect on those aircraft.
@@martinricardo4503 Your conclusion is not supported by your argument. It would have been negligent of the Navy to ignore the capabilities of the Zero, at least while finishing the design process of planes that were still on the drawing board. I do recognize that some of the crucial differences were cultural.
@@martinricardo4503 Thank you I posted something saying the same thing, for some reason that myth persists and even the video was incorrect about that.
@@roberthudson1959 The Hellcat was almost ready for distribution by the time we found and restored the Zero, and for some reason that myth persists.
Having flown the aircraft, (and virtually every other fighter both allied and axis), legendary British test pilot Captain Eric 'Winkle' Brown RN said the Zero was the best fighter up until 1943.
I still think it was, he's correct in my opinion.
@@tonyjames5444 I was privileged to have lunch with him once. He told a story of a Japanese pilot he met who was shot badly in the face flying his Zero still completed the mission and got home. He had a healthy respect for their pilots courage and determination.
One more weakness of the Zero: the fuel tank wasn't self-sealing. So, once the tank was punctured (if it didn't catch on fire), many never made it back to base.
They didn’t get into too much detail with it, but the hellcat was such an incredibly major improvement, that it ended up being the death of japan’s top ace. He used to employ a tactic where he would climb high enough to stall out the previous wildcats, then pursue while they were in an uncontrollable freefall. He did it so often, that it he didn’t pay much attention to the slightly larger airframe following him, and was shot down while climbing to pull off the same ol maneuver. The hellcat didn’t stall out, but instead kept climbing, and faster than the zero. It was a total 180 for the air war, pun half intended.
Teamwork defeated the Zero. Japan's philosophy of Samurai Warriors and individual combat are noble, but not practical in the modern world.Thomas Thatch and Butch O'Hare (for O'Hare Airport) invented the "Thatch Weave." In no time US Naval Air Forces dominated the Pacific War. Americans are team players.
On first contact the Allies had to swallow their collective pride and us collective tactics like the Thatch weave and Boom and Zoom because of the Zero's better handling and not get into a turning fight with it. Later with the likes of the F6F Hellcat, F4U Corsair, P-51 Mustang and so on it was our fight to dictate.
The shoot and scoot tactics were in use post Battle Of Britain before the US entered the war. Roald Dahl (Charlie And The Chocolate Factory etc author) goes into it a bit in his book, as did Clive Caldwell who, aside being Australias' ace with the highest tally, commanded a RAAF P-40 squadron in North Africa. He taught shoot and scoot was a better bet than a dogfight against 109s which were a superior machine at the time.
Great research and presentation.
10:02 Look at the power/weight ratio of each of the planes. Just looking at the engine power output is comparing apples and oranges.
The Planes of Fame Air Museum in Chino, California, USA, has a Mitsubishi A6M5 Type 0 Model 52 Reisen, which is the only authentic A6M flying with its original Nakajima Sakae engine. In December 2023 I attended a flying demo of the A6M, and asked the pilot afterwards about the plane. He said that the aircraft controls require only a light touch and that the plane is quite responsive to the pilot. He also mentioned that the A6M does not have a radio, and that he needed to coordinate with the airport tower in advance so that they would know what he planned to do while flying.
Balsa wood and paper weigh a lot less than steel and aluminum.
However, it doesn't protect the pilot.
It was basically a ww1 frame with a 1930-40s engine
@@TheSupart91 WW1 frames were all biplanes and triplanes.
The zero was made of aluminum. Only late in the war were some of them using inferior materials due to scarcity.
@@TexasHoosier3118 yeah, but.. no. Rumpler Taube, Fokker E III, Bristol M1C, Junkers D1, Moraine -Saulnier Type N.. all monoplanes developed and flown in WW1. Although not every was serie-produced and officially adopted for service.
A6M2 Zero was made of what was then a cutting edge and secret alloy which was lighter for the same strength compared to duralumin. This alloy, developed in secret in 1935, wouldn’t be replicated in the U.S. until 1942.
We now call it 7075 aluminum alloy, which is widely used in a number of applications. Bike frames, M16 assault rifle receivers, injection molds for plastics, Ford F-150 bodies, and a wide number of modern jet airplanes all use it.
The little F4 seemed to do fine against them at Midway and Guadal channel didn't it once tactics were developed. I personally think the Zero was more a surprise than a great fighter. We completely understand estimated the Japanese and paid for it in the early part of the war.
Wildcats shot down 6.9 Zeros for every Wildcat lost.
Yes, F4F Wildcats.
The Zero has an outsized legend. Sort of like the Panther, the T-34, and the MG-42.
For lightness, the Zero was built with the fuselage and the wing as a single piece, not bolted together like other planes. This meant that serious damage to a wing meant the entire plane had to be scrapped or returned to the depot to be rebuilt.
Wow! Max Hastings! 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
Great videos as always. One note on showing the old photographs (such as from 11:30 to 11:50), there’s no need for the artificial shakiness like on old projectors. We know it’s an old photo from the context, the added shaking and grain just makes it harder to focus on the details.
Early in the war Japan was at it's peak in pilot training, fighter performance and numbers while the allies were at their low.
A couple years later Japan was headed to their low while the allies were headed to their peak. The same went for Germany. The outcome was inevitable.
Thanks for posting 😊
I haven't really given it a whole of thought but it seems the Japanese really didn't upgrade their kit for almost the whole war.
They tried, but apart from a couple of excellent land-based fighters (the Ki-84 and N1K2-J) and a decent interceptor (the J2M), things just kept going wrong in development and production.
They didn't have the industry to roll out new models in numbers.
@@米空軍パイロット even the KI-84 only had like ~3500 made
@@wolfgangervin2582 And how does that compare to their opponents?
They did try, even with the Zero as late as 1945. They installed ever more powerful engines in the Zero, topping out with one of just over 1500 hp (for comparison, I think the first series had a 970hp engine). The problem became one of weight; the new engines were far more powerful, but they also continually weighed more. Installing even modest armor plate to protect the plane's vitals and pilot also increased weight. And the Zero had a very, very lightweight airframe, which was perhaps the main reason it was so maneuverable. Increasing power ended up doing almost as much harm to its performance as it did good.
The picture at 13:47 is amazing / horrifyingly. Took me a second to see exactly what’s going on. Some of the sailors look so nonchalant - clearly they do t know what’s about to occur.
It missed, that's why there's a picture to look at now.
That’s the USS Missouri and the plane for the most part missed the ship, and the bomb didn’t go off. There were no casualties on the ship or any major damage. They actually recovered the pilot’s body and held a funeral at sea for him. You can still see the dent from the impact on the ship today. It’s only a 2 foot long slightly deformed deck edge.
How did the Allies overcome the Zero fighter? "Shot and scoot" and "one pass, haul ass" tactics, developed by the US Marines in the dark early days of the Guadalcanal campaign. Edit: They also emphasized gunnery, perfecting the maximum deflection high-side pass shooting that was so effective,
Chennault had the AVG doing that in China long before the Marines landed at Guadalcanal.
The Commonwealth had been doing the same well before Guadalcanal. Ace Clive Caldwell in his book describes the same tactics used in North Africa. Even the famous childrens author (and ace) Roald Dahl said in his book "Going Solo" they did one pass tactics due to lessons learned from the Battle Of Britain. This was nearly two years before the USA even entered the war.
@@goodshipkaraboudjan But these tactics were not used against the Zero in North Africa and in the BOB.
@@tsmgguytrue but American forces had been using spray and pray when they eventually reluctantly joined the war on the allied side
@@peterrobbins2862 Democracy is a real pain in the ass sometimes, FDR wanted to get the US into the war right from the start but he didn't have the power to do it. He bent and broke a lot of laws and if you research it it's actually pretty funny how much he cheated.
We have Flight Officer Tadayoshi Kaga to thank- although his gift was certainly not given willingly.
FO Koga was a pilot from one of the smaller Japanese carriers that covered the landings on Attu and Kiska in the Aleutian Islands chain. Koga's Zero was hit by ground fire and was unable to make it back to his carrier. Japanese pilots were ordered not to allow their planes to fall into the hands of the enemy intact, so Koga, spotting what he thought was a grassy strip on an island, thought to land and then destroy his airplane. The grassy strip turned out to be long grass covering water. When the Zero touched down, it flipped over, breaking FO Koga's neck. The Zero itself was practically undamaged, and, once discovered by American airmen, it was quickly recovered, transported back to the mainland and repaired so it could undergo thorough flight testing.
I didn't know the whole story so that was pretty cool, thanks. They did make one mistake in the otherwise good video, the Hellcat wasn't designed because we had an intact Zero it had been researched and developed long before that and was almost ready for distribution at that point. For some reason that myth persists, the Zero they found had Zero to do wifh the Hellcat's development. It did however, help us to develop better tactics to combat it.
Like every other sector of weapons development in WW2, the US knew exactly what was needed. Whether it was a better rifle, boots, helmet, or ships with incredible amounts of AA fire, or planes - the US was clearly the most innovative and productive of all countries in the war.
Many are unaware that America only had about 200,000 men in the entire US Army and no tanks as late as 1939, when the whole world was already at war. We had no planes that were considered up to date. The B-17 did not even have a rear gun mount.
No country leveled up faster and more effectively than the US, and by 1943 had far outclassed the Japanese Empire in all phases of war materiel, and weapons.
Yamamoto was right when he predicted that he would run rampant for 6 months. After that, America would prevail.
If not for the Niihau incident, the US would have learned of the Zero’s weaknesses much earlier in the war.
Great, informative video. Many thanks for the final information about the USS Bunker Hill being the worst damaged (Kamikaze) US navy ship of WWII. Many mistaken videos regarding the USS Franklin, another Essex Class carrier being damaged by a level bomber that dropped two bomb causing the horrific damage to the Franklin. The combination of fueled, bomb laden aircraft, especially the SB2C dive bombers with Tiny Tim rockets that cooked off also contributed to the conflagration. My father served on the Bunker Hill, witnessed the Franklin burning on the horizon. Wounded by smoke inhalation, during the kamikaze attack 11 May 1945