A6M5 Zero

[Bolt1]

That’s why I prefer a late war IJN / IJAAF plane setup , Ki84 , N1K1 , J2M1…vs the Corsair , P51 , P47 and the Hellkitty when it gets added , not to mention the AI planes that would come also . I know it doesn’t go with the Mariana’s setup , but you could just put them on a default map until a Southern Japan map could be done .

[Gambit21]

That setup would be fun, and I'd take it over no Pacific at all, but it doesn't offer any dynamic that you can't get elsewhere aside from carrier ops obviously.

It's the early war matchups that really bring something new to the table.

 

That said I'll take flying a Zero against a Corsair or visa versa all day long...but early war PTO is ideal IMHO.

The good thing about the A6M-5 is that the Zero didn't really change much, and in a pinch you can still match it up with a Wildcat.

 

You can also just match an A6M-2 up against a Corsair for that matter.

Either Zeke can do the trick, but as I've said elsewhere there's PTO money sitting on the table waiting for a developer to grab it...I'm glad DCS is heading

that direction regardless of what we end up with.

[_SwiVet_]

On 5/13/2020 at 6:59 PM, RobOnPlane said:

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.

Agree, and with so much water on these maps i'd love to see more float-plane type fighters or supporting craft, such as the PBY Catalina etc. or a Zeke floatplane. 

Edited January 30, 2022 by _SwiVet_

[pirilampomagico]

Zero was the best ever made WW2 bird. They just dizimate the skyes. They was the kings of the air. No one even try to chalange them as soon they got in sight all enemies just run away. They was superior machines with no chalenges at all until the day they was no more. USA have to build new airplanes as soon as they got it they have no chances with zero. Would be a great DCS ww2 bird.

[NoodI]

5 hours ago, pirilampomagico said:

Zero was the best ever made WW2 bird. They just dizimate the skyes. They was the kings of the air. No one even try to chalange them as soon they got in sight all enemies just run away. They was superior machines with no chalenges at all until the day they was no more. USA have to build new airplanes as soon as they got it they have no chances with zero. Would be a great DCS ww2 bird.

no.

[pirilampomagico]

6 hours ago, NoodI said:

no.

The death of a bird doesnt stop the spring. He just die but the spring continues every year. What you think dont change the history.

Edited March 18, 2023 by pirilampomagico

[Ala13_ManOWar]

3 hours ago, pirilampomagico said:

The death of a bird doesnt stop the spring. He just die but the spring continues every year. What you think dont change the history.

 

This, think about it mate .

[NoodI]

16 hours ago, pirilampomagico said:

The death of a bird doesnt stop the spring. He just die but the spring continues every year. What you think dont change the history.

 

zero was outclassed by corsairs and hellcats, it was feared only until those came

[Hunter1324]

On 3/19/2023 at 5:20 AM, NoodI said:

zero was outclassed by corsairs and hellcats, it was feared only until those came

This an overly simplistic assesment. I recently got a digital copy of "F4U Corsair versus A6M Zero-sen" by Michael John Claringbould, and his research shows that at least in the Solomons and Rabaul, IJN Zeros stood their ground pretty well against USMC Corsair's and USAAF units. Back then there was still quite a decent ammount of expirienced, land-based IJN pilots which were able to amass in comparable numbers to their opponent and fought a mostly deffensive campaign, resulting in comparable exchange ratios.

It is later in the war, when IJN pilot quality truelly plummeted and the strategic situation worsened that you start to really see the very one-sided engagements such as the Battle of the Philippines Sea. By that point the IJN and IJAAF were progressively more and more outnumbered and very few expirienced pilots remained, the situation got so bad that even units flying much superior aircraft like the Ki-84 and N1K2 over the homeland rarely managed to break even.

Edited April 17, 2023 by Hunter1324

[Gambit21]

On 4/16/2023 at 12:08 PM, Hunter1324 said:

This an overly simplistic assesment.

Yes it is.

On 4/16/2023 at 12:08 PM, Hunter1324 said:

I recently got a digital copy of "F4U Corsair versus A6M Zero-sen" by Michael John Claringbould, and his research shows that at least in the Solomons and Rabaul, IJN Zeros stood their ground pretty well against USMC Corsair's and USAAF units. Back then there was still quite a decent ammount of expirienced, land-based IJN pilots which were able to amass in comparable numbers to their opponent and fought a mostly deffensive campaign, resulting in comparable exchange ratios.

It is later in the war, when IJN pilot quality truelly plummeted and the strategic situation worsened that you start to really see the very one-sided engagements such as the Battle of the Philippines Sea. By that point the IJN and IJAAF were progressively more and more outnumbered and very few expirienced pilots remained, the situation got so bad that even units flying much superior aircraft like the Ki-84 and N1K2 over the homeland rarely managed to break even.

 

 

Yep...the Zero itself was dangerous for the entire war, and assuming equal pilots was actually well matched against the F6F-3. 

Different story with the F6F-5...but it was still dangerous.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[CRUD]

On 3/17/2023 at 8:43 PM, pirilampomagico said:

Zero was the best ever made WW2 bird. They just dizimate the skyes. They was the kings of the air. No one even try to chalange them as soon they got in sight all enemies just run away. They was superior machines with no chalenges at all until the day they was no more. USA have to build new airplanes as soon as they got it they have no chances with zero. Would be a great DCS ww2 bird.

LOL, No, it wasn't the greatest "WW2 bird".

[upyr1]

On 3/17/2023 at 7:43 PM, pirilampomagico said:

Zero was the best ever made WW2 bird. They just dizimate the skyes. They was the kings of the air. No one even try to chalange them as soon they got in sight all enemies just run away. They was superior machines with no chalenges at all until the day they was no more. USA have to build new airplanes as soon as they got it they have no chances with zero. Would be a great DCS ww2 bird.

 

I'd love to see you defend those words in Warbird duel.

 

[GUFA]

On 9/30/2021 at 1:19 AM, Bolt1 said:

That’s why I prefer a late war IJN / IJAAF plane setup , Ki84 , N1K1 , J2M1…vs the Corsair , P51 , P47 and the Hellkitty when it gets added , not to mention the AI planes that would come also . I know it doesn’t go with the Mariana’s setup , but you could just put them on a default map until a Southern Japan map could be done .

I really would like the Zero because it is available 'pre war'. Would very much like to see Aichi D1A 'Susie, B7A 'Grace' D3A 'Val' along with 'Betty'

[Gunfreak]

The advantage of the Zero is that it was used the entire war(yes I know different modeles, but as long as it's AI it doesn't matter that much) so you got a plane that the Wildcat can fight if we ever get one. The F6F and Corsair fought them a lot. Even spitfires met them.

[CRUD]

mod (fc2.com)

 

There are some WWII Japanese mods at the link above, the aircraft may need to be fiddled with, if the current version of the Reisen doesn't work or show up use the previous version.  The aircraft and the ships work for me and I'm in the current beta version.  The Reisen will take off from the Zuikaku.  It is showing as flyable in my menu, but I own the P-51 and I think you need that to fly it.  The Raiden is a Japanese Army Air Force Plane and is not carrier capable.

You can translate the page in your browser since it is in Japanese.  All the JGSDF stuff works to as do the B-29, the F2 mod (It's the Japanese F-16) works too

Edited May 5, 2023 by CRUD

[Rudel_chw]

18 minutes ago, CRUD said:

There are some WWII Japanese mods at the link above

That’s @DOL ‘s website… I love his B-29 / Tu-4 

[CRUD]

On 3/19/2023 at 12:20 AM, NoodI said:

zero was outclassed by corsairs and hellcats, it was feared only until those came

LTCDR Thatch would disagree.  He figured them out with the F4F Wildcat.

 

[Hunter1324]

On 5/5/2023 at 2:12 PM, CRUD said:

LTCDR Thatch would disagree.  He figured them out with the F4F Wildcat.

 

Kenneth A. Walsh was one of the top USMC aces in WWII and was credited with shooting down 21 aircraft during the Solomons Air Campaign...

... He also got shot down by Zeros, thrice. As did Pappy Boyington once, before becoming a POW.

The point I'm trying to get across is that even an expirienced pilot could meet its match on the A6M Zero. As I guess you already know, WWII air to air combat wasn't about neat tail chasing furballs and most pilots never saw their attacker before being shotdown. Current data shows that the F4F Wildcat and the A6M Zero were well matched and had a mostly even exchange ratio throught 1942, even more modern aircraft like the P-38 and F4U only took a slight lead on the A6M during the reminder of the Solomons campaign. These kind of sweeping generalizations kind off remove some merit to your own (?) servicemen, making it seem like they had the upper hand the momment they "figured it out", when in truth the air war in the Pacific was quite a contest throught 1942 and 1943 and the eventual collapse of the IJN and IJAAF came down more to Japan's inability to keep up with the attrition in both aircraft, pilots and ground crews than in technical and tactical improvements by the Allies (which, I won't deny, did play a role throught the war).

Also adressing a previous reply, while the A6M Zero was certainly not "the best ever made WW2 bird", it was still one of the finest plane designs of the Late 1930's and, given the lingering limitations of Japanese Air Industry, a massive archievement. Again kind of underselling both Japanese ingenuity and the struggle the USN, USAAF, USMC, RAF and RAAF pilots had to go through early in the war.

 

 

 

Edited May 15, 2023 by Hunter1324

[DOL]

On 5/5/2023 at 9:28 AM, CRUD said:

The Raiden is a Japanese Army Air Force Plane and is not carrier capable.

 

The Raiden is not a carrier-based aircraft, but it is a navy aircraft.

[CRUD]

3 hours ago, DOL said:

The Raiden is not a carrier-based aircraft, but it is a navy aircraft.

Cool, Love your gear!

[303_Kermit]

16 hours ago, Hunter1324 said:

Current data shows that the F4F Wildcat and the A6M Zero were well matched and had a mostly even exchange ratio throught 1942, even more modern aircraft like the P-38 and F4U only took a slight lead on the A6M during the reminder of the Solomons campaign. These kind of sweeping generalizations kind off remove some merit to your own (?) servicemen, making it seem like they had the upper hand the momment they "figured it out", when in truth the air war in the Pacific was quite a contest throught 1942 and 1943 and the eventual collapse of the IJN and IJAAF came down more to Japan's inability to keep up with the attrition in both aircraft, pilots and ground crews than in technical and tactical improvements by the Allies (which, I won't deny, did play a role throught the war).

Also adressing a previous reply, while the A6M Zero was certainly not "the best ever made WW2 bird", it was still one of the finest plane designs of the Late 1930's and, given the lingering limitations of Japanese Air Industry, a massive archievement. Again kind of underselling both Japanese ingenuity and the struggle the USN, USAAF, USMC, RAF and RAAF pilots had to go through early in the war.

 

 

 

 

I red Saburo Sakai's book. I sensed that he rather saw F-4F as comparable to his A6M, and P-38, P-47 and P-51 as far superior. A chapter about it is quite dramatic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Islands_campaign has weakend IJA. However the end of Japanese Air Forces according to many Japanese and US Historians (and also it's stated in Saburo Sakai's book) came rapidly and was a shock to the Japanese Navy HQ. "The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot" - 650 planes  (380 in One day), many IJN Aces, two fleet CV's and one light CV lost. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Philippine_Sea
https://www.history.navy.mil/browse-by-topic/wars-conflicts-and-operations/world-war-ii/1944/battle-philippine-sea/turkey-shoot.html
https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2022/december/marianas-turkey-shoot-plus-seventy-five

F6F-3 brought an end to A6M Zero. It's simple. F-4U wasn't even necessary...

In spite of that I want A6M Zeke  ... Just as many other dcs fans. Being Inferior is irrelevant. 

Edited May 6, 2023 by 303_Kermit

[Hunter1324]

7 hours ago, 303_Kermit said:

I red Saburo Sakai's book. I sensed that he rather saw F-4F as comparable to his A6M, and P-38, P-47 and P-51 as far superior. A chapter about it is quite dramatic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Islands_campaign has weakend IJA. However the end of Japanese Air Forces according to many Japanese and US Historians (and also it's stated in Saburo Sakai's book) came rapidly and was a shock to the Japanese Navy HQ. "The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot" - 650 planes  (380 in One day), many IJN Aces, two fleet CV's and one light CV lost. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Philippine_Sea
https://www.history.navy.mil/browse-by-topic/wars-conflicts-and-operations/world-war-ii/1944/battle-philippine-sea/turkey-shoot.html
https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2022/december/marianas-turkey-shoot-plus-seventy-five

F6F-3 brought an end to A6M Zero. It's simple. F-4U wasn't even necessary...

In spite of that I want A6M Zeke  ... Just as many other dcs fans. Being Inferior is irrelevant. 

 

Lots to unpack here so let me go one by one.

 

While Samurai! is a great read I'm not sure it is the best source to draw any conclusions regarding the capabilities of WW2 aircraft, mainly for two reasons:

1. It is well know that quite a bit of the book is fictionalized, either due to mistranslations or the coauthors (mainly Martin Caidin and Fred Saito) wanting to add some extra flair to the book.

2. While Saburo Sakai was certainly one of the best IJN fighter pilots, he also was grounded due to his injuries/working as an instructor for much of the war (from August 1942 to April 1944, to be exact), this meant he missed out nearly the entirety of the Guadalcanal campaign (he was crippled in one of the first IJN raids against the island) as well as much of the reminder of the air campaign over New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. That also meant he went from confronting F-4F's, P-40's and P-39's to fighting late variants of P-51's. Likewise I have doubts he personally encountered much if any P-38's or (P-47's for that matter) late in his carrier since, after his deployment over Iwo Jima, where he would had encountered USN almost exclusively, he spent the reminder of the war with the 343rd Kokutai over the mainland, where P-38's in fighter roles were a no-show and P-47(N)'s arrived very late. 

I get that there isn't much material in English about IJN (or IJAAF) pilots and therefore it can be quite hard to dig up this sources, but my point still stands, you shouldn't base your assessment of aircraft or an entire conflict based on the experience of just one person, even if they can provide quite a lot of insight in some specific actions besides being just interesting by themselves, that is why we need to dig deep into the operational records of air units in WW2 and elsewhere.

 

As for the Battle of the Philippines Sea, as I addressed in an earlier comment (my very first comment in the site, actually), while the Hellcat performance and the highly improved radar vectoring certainly played a very big role at the very one-sided air engagements over the Marianas, the statement that "many IJN Aces [...] lost" undermines the main reason (according to most experts and I'm inclined to agree) why both carrier and land-based IJN air units faired so poorly in the battle, mainly, they actually weren't many "aces" in those units because most of them had already died by that point in the war.

The carrier air-units had been almost fully depleted in the carrier battles of 1942 through attrition which is the reason why the IJN spent much of 1943 and a chunk of 1944 trying to rebuild their carrier aviation back to the levels it had before the war... Key word here is trying, Japan simply didn't have enough instructors or resources to train such a an amount of air and maintenance crews in so little time, which combined with a suboptimal training plan and unrealistic expectations by the high command meant that, the vast majority of pilots who were deployed in IJN carriers for the battle had often just 150 hours of flight time and only very rudimentary skills in how to conduct combat, navigate or fly in formation. It was so bad, that Ozawa described that many of the pilots that managed to return from the battle couldn't perform a proper carrier landing even with undamaged planes and crashed their planes on the flight deck or ditched in its proximity. 

As for ground based air-units they also had been "attritioned out" by the fighting over New Guinea and the Solomon Islands and by mid 1944 were just a shadow of their former self. Their training regime was even leaner and they often had as little as 100 hours of flight.

So while the IJN had amassed on paper a very impressive force to the battle, in practice it was just "paper", the qualitative gap between the USN and IJN aircrews had just reached its critical point after Japan's failure to keep up with the attrition rates of their pilots. So I have to bluntly state that you are wrong about the F4U (or any other allied aircraft type) not mattering, because the reason why the Battle of the Philippine Sea played out as it did was due to the EFFECTS that the continuous loss of experienced aircrews had on the combat capabilities of the IJN (and the IJAAF elsewhere), which were CAUSED by the actions of Allied aircrews and AA gunners among others thorough 1942 and 1943. The F6F Hellcat was also present during the Solomon Islands Campaign, but it didn't play as much of a role as the F4U did in that theater, arriving later and in smaller numbers, and although I haven't seen a thorough examination of its combat record there, it didn't seem to perform any better than the Corsair units based on attrition rates, and again, the Solomon Campaigns tied up and grinded out quite a big chunk of the IJN land-based units, contributing to the decline of Japan's war capabilities. So in a way, one can argue that, while the Hellcat was great plane and its pilots skill enhanced it results, it also wind up being at the right place and the right time to rack-up an extremely high exchange ratio, under circumstances in which even much less capable planes would had performed very well (see also late war combat record of the FM Wildcats).

 

Finally and being just a little tongue-in-cheek for a second... You know what the A in IJA stands for, right? I know it was probably just a mistake and I surely have made quite a few myself in such a wall of text, but its still funny 

Edited May 6, 2023 by Hunter1324

[303_Kermit]

10 hours ago, Hunter1324 said:

2. While Saburo Sakai was certainly one of the best IJN fighter pilots, he also was grounded due to his injuries/working as an instructor for much of the war (from August 1942 to April 1944, to be exact), this meant he missed out nearly the entirety of the Guadalcanal campaign (he was crippled in one of the first IJN raids against the island) as well as much of the reminder of the air campaign over New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. That also meant he went from confronting F-4F's, P-40's and P-39's to fighting late variants of P-51's. Likewise I have doubts he personally encountered much if any P-38's or (P-47's for that matter) late in his carrier since, after his deployment over Iwo Jima, where he would had encountered USN almost exclusively, he spent the reminder of the war with the 343rd Kokutai over the mainland, where P-38's in fighter roles were a no-show and P-47(N)'s arrived very late. 

Finally and being just a little tongue-in-cheek for a second... You know what the A in IJA stands for, right? I know it was probably just a mistake and I surely have made quite a few myself in such a wall of text, but its still funny 

 

Many words - 80% offtopic, however very interesting. Thanks, but you shall think about posting it in some other topic maybe? 
"About tongue in cheek"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Japanese_Army_Air_Service
There is no mistake in writing IJA - since IJAAS or IJAAF aren't (or weren't) independent formation, but one of Army Forces, (like IJNAS are part of IJN ).  Since they're not as famous as USAAF (also part of US Army forces - recognized as independent force after WW2) nobody cares. So IJA and IJN

Ad2. Still - it makes no difference. And all that you wrote isn't actually a significant argument. 
Sakai wrote about USAAF planes in very professional way. He stated, that Zeke was still more agile, but USAAF planes could fly much higher than Japanese planes, and it was enough to make them obsolete. P-38 killed Admiral Yamamoto in spite of presence of Japanese fighters. They felt really helpless.
Also simple comparison of performance at high altitude is enough to see what he meant. Being one of few still alive  (at the end of war) experienced pilots, with great understanding of air warfare, and close to high stuff he had unique ability to properly understand and estimate technical advantage of USAAF and USN. I don't see anyone who's more competent to evaluate situation. Everyone else usually lack either technical knowledge, personal war experience, knowledge about aerial warfare, or specific japanese context.

In the end back to the topic:
Give us the A6M Zeke!

My best regards
Green Ugly Fellow

Edited May 6, 2023 by 303_Kermit

[Hunter1324]

On 5/7/2023 at 12:44 AM, 303_Kermit said:

Many words - 80% offtopic, however very interesting. Thanks, but you shall think about posting it in some other topic maybe? 
"About tongue in cheek"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Japanese_Army_Air_Service
There is no mistake in writing IJA - since IJAAS or IJAAF aren't (or weren't) independent formation, but one of Army Forces, (like IJNAS are part of IJN ).  Since they're not as famous as USAAF (also part of US Army forces - recognized as independent force after WW2) nobody cares. So IJA and IJN

Ad2. Still - it makes no difference. And all that you wrote isn't actually a significant argument. 
Sakai wrote about USAAF planes in very professional way. He stated, that Zeke was still more agile, but USAAF planes could fly much higher than Japanese planes, and it was enough to make them obsolete. P-38 killed Admiral Yamamoto in spite of presence of Japanese fighters. They felt really helpless.
Also simple comparison of performance at high altitude is enough to see what he meant. Being one of few still alive  (at the end of war) experienced pilots, with great understanding of air warfare, and close to high stuff he had unique ability to properly understand and estimate technical advantage of USAAF and USN. I don't see anyone who's more competent to evaluate situation. Everyone else usually lack either technical knowledge, personal war experience, knowledge about aerial warfare, or specific japanese context.

In the end back to the topic:
Give us the A6M Zeke!

My best regards
Green Ugly Fellow

 

Is it really off-topic when the text is heavily focused on the perception of the A6M Zero in the late war and about whether its combat results were due to technicall shortcomings or other factors?

Also, of course I know the IJAAF and the IJAAS are part of the army  ... Thing is that in the context you were using it still makes  no sense because the IJAAF was NOT involved in the Battle of the Philippine Seas. The land based air units were Imperial Japanese Navy units, flying navy planes (A6M's, D4Y's and B6N's). The Army had no involvement in the entire battle at all!

Also no <profanity> about the A6M Zero's being unable to protect Yamamoto's flight, it was 6 Zeros vs 16 P-38's. Exchange the scenario and I guarantee that the Zero's would also had gotten through. Also I probably should point out that the A6M Zero's suffered no combat losses during the flight (this is well documented in wartime documents) while one of the P-38's failed to return... I'll give you three guesses as to why Lt. Raymond K. Hine didn't make it back to Guadalcanal, hint, he was last seen being persued by the fighter escort.

 

Anyways, I think we can both agree that having an A6M Zero module in-game would be amazing.

Edited June 9, 2023 by Hunter1324