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A6M5 Zero


RobOnPlane

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Dear Pilots.

 

I remember seeing something about a Zero being added to DCS.

 

Now with the Pacific theathre being added, i have not seen a single update about the Zero. It might be because most people are stoked about the Mosquito and P-47. But i can really not wait for the Zero to be added. And i wonder if it will be any update about it soon.:pilotfly:

 

Have fun fighting boys.

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I seem to remember that the Japanese did get some German equipment during WWII...

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I wouldn't be surprised if the Zero inspired the design of the Fw190...it's very similar in appearance.

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"I seem to remember that the Japanese did get some German equipment during WWII.."

 

If you mean that they used them in combat, no. Single airplanes were sent to Japan for study purposes, only. I know of no German airplanes that saw combat being flown by the Japanese.

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"The Zero was wholly of Japanese origin."

 

Somethng that the western nations had a hard time accepting. Even today, you will hear claims that the Zero was a copy of this American design or that one. The rascist Western mind could not accept the fact that an Asian country could have designed something better than they could.

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it would be wrong to overestimate the zero though, if you look at the records the "inferior" f4f was actually exchanging quite fairly with a6ms.

the japanese were willing to make design concessions western nations weren't, the concept of 'better' here requires a very narrow valuation.

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it would be wrong to overestimate the zero though, if you look at the records the "inferior" f4f was actually exchanging quite fairly with a6ms.

the japanese were willing to make design concessions western nations weren't, the concept of 'better' here requires a very narrow valuation.

 

Airframe to an airframe Zero is vastly superior to F4F. But no aircraft exists alone. Its a part of a whole ecosystem where pilot, tactics, doctrine and other factors play key role. John Lundstrom's First Team and the Guadalcanal Campaign explains that in fine details, including tactics. Zeros in 1942 had very favorable K/D ratio against Allied aircraft. But not so for 1943, not to mention 1944. Little had that however to do with an airframe, but more with pilot skills and increasing Allied technological and material superiority.

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"The Kawasaki Ki-61 used a licence built Daimler-Benz DB 601."

 

And what the Hell does that have to do with what we're posting about?

 

I wasn't replying to you.

 

I was responding to mytai01's post about German equipment being used by the Japanese.

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Let's stick on that both planes are just using a radial engine. Maybe there was some influence from the Fw-190 to later variants of the A6M Zero as it happened all over the World. The British influenced the P-51 with the engine while the Me-262 influenced the first jet planes of the Allied nations after World War 2.

 

Let's be happy that there is a huge variation of different warbirds with different engine sounds.

 

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I'm not sure where the entire idea come from. German - Japanese cooperation wasn't particularly great and although Japanese industry was influenced or directly supported by various German (and other) engineers in early 1930s, by late 1930s it largely became "self sufficient".

 

If you take a look at Japanese aircraft designs, in 1920s Japan manufactured mostly aircraft acquired on licence from France, UK or US. By the end of 1920s and in early 1930s transition period began, where industry attempted to satisfy needs of Army and Navy with own designs, but still using multiple foreign designed components. Some designs were thus originally Japanese, while others like Type 91 fighter or Kawasaki Ki-10 either had air frame based on foreign construction (former) or engine of foreign origin (latter Ki-10 used liquid cooled inline engine manufactured under licence from BMW).

 

By late 1930s this has settled as industry became fully capable of delivering airframes, engines (radial only though, as with Ki-61 and Ki-60 Daimler-Benz liquid cooled inline engine - DB 601Aa, was needed due to industries lack of experience in this field), weapons and ammunition. Radios and more advanced equipment might have been in some way dependent on foreign constructions (one of the B5Ns shot down over Pearl Harbor carried on board Fairchild made long range radio transmitter), but were also increasingly of native construction.

 

Thus to assume that A6M was in any way influenced by FW-190 one would have to prove a lot of impossible things. For one, the construction and design process of FW-190 A began later than for Mitsubishi which received from IJN 12-Shi Carrier-borne Fighter requirements in 1937. So as pointed its 190A that might've been influenced by a Zero, which realistically is not a thing though.

 

The other thing is that Japan - Germany cooperation did not work really well. Japan acquired a number of aircraft designs from Germany - He-112, Ju-87, Bf-109 E and later even FW-190 A-5 but only for testing, although some technical documentation for the 109 E was actually translated into Japanese. Production under licence was much worse. Mentioned DB-601Aa was manufactured in Japan under designation Type 2 or Ha-40 by Kawasaki or Atsuta (11 or 21, cant remember now) by Aichi. Yet neither company, due to Reich not permitting such sale, did not obtain crucial to that engine Bosch Fuel Injection System and Mitsubishi had to design one on its own. Given system operated at higher pressure than original Bosch system and caused variety of trouble, including fuel lines rupturing at extremes. On the other hand engine displayed some performance deviations from the original design (in favor of it, as engine had 20 - 30 HP more in some cases than Db 601Aa).

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wow, thanks a lot for this long context. I did not know that Japan aircraft at the time was so dependent on other countries... mainly because they tend to be so proud our themself and because it tended to be a quite close country by then.

 

Actually, it is curious how one of the most important companies by then, Mitsubishi, started with Aircraft around the time you mentioned 1920s, before was a shipping company and coal mining one... bravo for the post :)

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Mitsubishi was producing all kinds of things. Same as Nakajima. This was huge corporation of its time. I mean it was and is Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.

As for being proud. They absolutely should be. They started very late into industrialization, when US, UK, France or Germany were already heavily industrialized. They also were late in the race for "producing" engineers which left Japan with very limited manpower in this department (striking example is Jiro Horikoshi and his team that after completion of A6M was jumping back and forth in process of developing of J2M, upgrades to A6M and its successor A7M).

So in a matter of decade they moved from being entirely dependent in aviation industry to being almost completely independent (which did not exclude cooperation, although Japanese had their own jet engine designs, infra red and radar technology development, etc.). But despite sincere attempts Japan could not overcome delays being consequences of previous decades and was at technological disadvantage in comparison to US or Germany. Which on its own is an irony considering today its pinnacle of technology along with Silicon Valley in US or couple other places.

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Thanks for the explanation :). Yes, is true, as far as I know from some Japanese friends I have, it seems that Japan always faced this dilemma between modern and tradition, especially when new things thread traditions somehow. From what they told me after WWII until the last 10 years, the people got focused more on modern and outside of the country, rather than tradition and nationalist, but it seems that with Abe that has changed a bit.

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