Simviation Forums

Posted: **Sun Mar 20, 2005 5:43 am**

Its easy to imagine a lone pilot in a single engined aircraft darting about the sky becoming an ace but hard to invision that an aircraft as ungainly as the Beaufighter of being an "ace maker".

Ever heard of night fighters? Those guys flew aircraft like the Me 110, Beau and Ki-45 and a great number of them were aces.

Posted: **Sun Mar 20, 2005 6:24 am**

I suggest trying to fly a Beau, theyre quite spritley and very manouverable.

The Jap planes weren't of a decenet construction anyway, so its easy to imagine cannon ripping into it...

Intruiging post by the way....

A.

Posted: **Sun Mar 20, 2005 7:19 am**

If the Zero had had a decent armament and armor, the air superiority would not have switched sides before the end of '44.

Posted: **Sun Mar 20, 2005 6:35 pm**

If the Zero had had a decent armament and armor, the air superiority would not have switched sides before the end of '44.

But then it would not have been a "Zero" ... In that sense, it had a decent punch - two cannon and two guns, but the design philosophy at the time was range and maneouverability vs armor protection (added weight, which meant less range/ less maneouverability)

At the time, the expected enemy was still flying biplanes, and the monoplanes facing the Japanese weren't that good. By Japanese standards, the sundry Buffaloes, P-36s, (even a few P-26s) weren't a match for the A5M, let alone the A6M (Okay, so the first kill of a Japanese aircraft during the Pearl Harbor attacks was a P-36 shooting down a Zeke ... )

Now, once the design philosophy of the Japanese changed, there were some good designs (Ki-100, etc) that would have seriously challeneged the US airplanes 1v1, but it was a case of too little, too late, and the Japanese lost the numbers game.

Posted: **Mon Mar 21, 2005 1:49 am**

Very well put Felix. I was gonna say something similar, but you beat me to the punch.

Posted: **Mon Mar 21, 2005 7:32 am**

[quote]

Posted: **Mon Mar 21, 2005 10:08 am**

IN a straight dogfight, the Zeke could hold it's own (Sakai survived a 16v1 against Hellcats,even if neither side scored a kill), but ultimately, the heavier armor and numbers, numbers, numbers, overwhelmed the Zekes (not to mention quite a number of good Allied pilots and the dwindling number of well-trained pilots on the Japanese side.

Wasn't that because many japanese pilots refused to wear a parachute?

Posted: **Mon Mar 21, 2005 10:30 am**

Wasn't that because many japanese pilots refused to wear a parachute?

You could be correct but I've never seen that mentioned before. It doesn't seem very practical to me as experienced fighter pilots would be more difficult to replace than the aircraft.

This might have been true for Kamikaze pilots as they wouldn't need one.

PS. You have to face facts that the Zero was fast & highly manoeuvrable mainly due to its light construction. This was helped by the lack of armour protection for the pilot & self-sealing fuel tanks used on the Allied aircraft. Apparently the latter also caused it to catch fire easily when hit. All these things add weight & it would have been far less effective with these items fitted.

Posted: **Mon Mar 21, 2005 11:19 am**

You could be correct but I've never seen that mentioned before. It doesn't seem very practical to me as experienced fighter pilots would be more difficult to replace than the aircraft.

This might have been true for Kamikaze pilots as they wouldn't need one.

Again, one must realize the prevalent mentality of the time and place. The highly trained Imperial Japanese Naval aviators were inspired by the samurai/bushido code, so that death in battle was not to be shunned. Sakai mentions that they flew without parachutes, until late in the war when they were ordered to wear them - again - they IJN command realizing that they needed their experienced pilots much more than the code. Sakai writes that they would frequently take off and slip off the parachute straps as 'too confining'.

Posted: **Mon Mar 21, 2005 11:00 pm**

In a straight dogfight, the Zeke could hold it's own (Sakai survived a 16v1 against Hellcats, even if neither side scored a kill).........

Posted: **Mon Mar 21, 2005 11:42 pm**

..... but ultimately, the heavier armor and numbers, numbers, numbers, overwhelmed the Zekes (not to mention quite a number of good Allied pilots and the dwindling number of well-trained pilots on the Japanese side.

First of all pilot training in the IJN before the war was very stringent, to the point of brutality. Many cadets, that would have been good pilots by U.S. standards, were washed out becouse they couldn't "make the cut". This left, at the start of the war, a small but elite core of men to make up the fighter pilots of the IJN. As the war continued, and the need for pilots became greater, this style of pilot training could not be retained as it hindered the number of pilots produced.

Secondly some credit must be given to the F6F, it was an easy aircraft fly with no bad habits. Its said that the F6F made a mediocre pilot look good and a good pilot look great.

Posted: **Tue Mar 22, 2005 7:06 am**

[quote]

Posted: **Mon Mar 28, 2005 8:25 am**

So which of the "night fighters" had the most victories? Just throwing a question out there since I've not even thought about it until now. :)

John

Posted: **Mon Mar 28, 2005 9:08 am**

[quote]So which of the "night fighters" had the most victories? Just throwing a question out there since I've not even thought about it until now.

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