Why the Hellcat Dominated the Zero at the Battle of the Philippine Sea

The Battle of the Philippine Sea was the largest aircraft carrier battle ever. The American Grumman Hellcat fighter dominated what used to be a feared aircraft in the skies over the Pacific, the Mitsubishi Zero. In this video we look at what made the Hellcat so potent.
Bibliography
Bridgman, Leonard. Jane's Fighting Aircraft of World War II. Twickenham: Tiger Books, 1998.
Cleaver, Thomas McKelvey. F4F Wildcat and F6F Hellcat Aces of VF-2. Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2015.
Graff, Cory. F6F Hellcat at War. Minneapolis, MN: Zenith, 2009.
Young, Edward M., Jim Laurier, and Gareth Hector. F6F Hellcat vs A6M Zero-Sen. Oxford: Osprey Publishing Ltd, 2014.

[@MrHws5mp]

The other factor that counted against the Zero was Aileron Reversal. This is an aerodynamic effect where the pressure of airflow on a deflected aileron causes it to bend the wingtip, producing the opposite rolling effect to the one commanded by the pilot. Good design practice is to make the wing strong enough that the aileron reversal speed is well above the maximum speed of the aircraft. However the obsessive quest for lightness in the Zero meant that its wing structure was very flimsy, and thus the aileron reversal speed was well _within_ it's maximum speed. Once a few Zeros had been captured and test flown by the Americans, a major change in tactics was instituted. Whereas previously, Buffalo and Wildcat pilots would try to slow down and turn with the Zero (and lose), Hellcat and Corsair pilots now did everything they could to keep the speeds as high as possible, performing diving, slashing attacks rather than entering into a turning dogfight. This forced the Zeros to try to turn at speeds where their roll rate was much more sluggish due to aileron reversal. Then if they did manage to get onto the tail of a USN fighter, the latter could escape by diving away, because the heavier US aircraft, with higher wing loadings, accelerated faster in a dive than the 'tin parachute' Zeros.

[@s.langhorneclemens8877]

Wow very cool knowledge to share thank you! Why couldn't the Japanese produce a more powerful engine? I'm thinking, of course, the power-to-weight ratio being the key to dominance for WWII fighters. Was it fuel related like Germany and the whole manifold pressure thing?

[@MrHws5mp]

@@s.langhorneclemens8877 It was a whole complicated mixture of things. They started late and they made several screw-ups, but the main thing was industrial capacity. They did actually produce better engines eventually, but they didn't have the amount of specialised industry neccessary to produce them in the kind of numbers required to re-equip their whole army and navy air forces.

[@lamproshoi4]

Amazing comment thank you for the technical details !

[@theeyehead3437]

Awesome info!

[@falkwulf3842]

You forgot to add in Compressibility. The A6M could not use its big ailerons effectively over 200 knots. After the capture of the Akutan Zero and subsequent test flight the one problem became immediately apparent was the fact that the ailerons froze up at speeds above 200 knots so that rolling maneuvers at those speeds were slow and required much so much force on the control stick most pilots lacked the physical strength to overcome the "Compressibility" on the Zero's large ailerons. Test pilots also noted that the Zero rolled to the left much easier than to the right due to the factors you outlined. Also, test pilots noted the Zero's Nakajima NK1C Sakae-12 engine cut out under negative acceleration due to a poorly implemented over designed float-type carburetor.

[@williamashbless7904]

The Hellcat was incredibly easy to master for freshly trained pilots. Grumman was turning out so many of them, and losses were so low, that it wasn’t uncommon for flight crews to roll war weary Hellcats over the side rather than spend the man hours needed to refurbish. Also, they made an incredible number of planes and, when the war ended, production ceased.

[@hillbilly4895]

Wondering, were any Hellcats deployed in Europe? Or, did they have more P51's, 47's and 38's than they knew what to do with?

[@smittywjmj]

@@hillbilly4895 There was only one US carrier in the Atlantic, USS Ranger, and she wasn't big enough to operate Hellcats. USN was asking for all the planes they could get to operate in the Pacific theater, they didn't have the resources to send any of their carrier fighters over to Europe. It's possible that some of the British imported Hellcats may have been used in the Atlantic around Europe, but the majority of their service was in the Pacific and Indian oceans as well.

[@craigore2011]

It slaughtered Zeroes without mercy. 13 - 1 kill loss ratio, just brutal.

[@SpartacusColo]

@@hillbilly4895 Hellcats did go into British Navy service via Lend Lease. Some were employed in convoy escort duties in the Atlantic.

[@Svensk7119]

​@@hillbilly4895 Patches seems to know his(her?) stuff. Also remember, the USAAF did most of the flying in Europe, whereas the Navy and Marines had the Pacific, mostly. Some planes would have been used by all branches, but even then, each service would have had some specific requirements for its aircraft. This is probably why we associate different planes with each theater. P-38s Pacific, P-51s Europe. I know some 38s made it across the pond, and I think some P-47s were in the West, but most craft had primary theaters.

[@25aida]

Fun fact about the F6F Hellcat, the first pilot to score a kill on a Zero while inside the Hellcat was pilot Robert Wayne Duncan. He has a Wikipedia article which talks about his historic mission. It reads, "Duncan, then an Ensign, scored his first and second aerial victories in the Hellcat, the second being Japanese flying ace Warrant Officer Toshiyoki Sueda, who previously had downed nine American aircraft, mostly Grumman Wildcats. Sueda had previously lured Wildcats into a trap by flying into a vertical loop and waiting for them to stall out before diving down to shoot them. However, this same technique failed to cause the similar looking but improved Hellcat to stall and Duncan was able to shoot his opponent down. Duncan was unaware for a while that his second kill was a flying ace, and not a rookie pilot because the dogfight did not prove to be particularly difficult." His mission was also featured on the History Channel TV Show "Dogfights". The episode in question, Season 1, Episode 6, The Zero Killer.

[@rElliot09]

There is some good research and as far Sueda, there is nothing to show he scored any kills prior to this combat. Him being an ace is myth.

[@25aida]

@@rElliot09 Actually, if you watch the episode of Dogfights that I mentioned, they mention that Sueda had 9 kills. Basically, he would climb up, gambling that the Wildcat pilot was too cocky, and would climb up after him. The wildcat would go up, stall, and enter a flat spin. Sueda would roll out of his climb and pick the Wildcat off.

[@The_Modeling_Underdog]

@@25aida "Dogfights" was on par with "Dark Skies" and Mark Felton.

[@The_Modeling_Underdog]

@@rElliot09 Where may I find that research, mate?

[@25aida]

@@The_Modeling_Underdog Ok then, how about the fact that it was on History Channel, and had 2 seasons, from 2006 to 2008.

[@edwardloomis887]

It's worth mentioning that Jimmy Thach whose report opened this video, who besides being a skilled observer of fighter aircraft qualities was also a tactical innovator, came up with a maneuver which would allow Wildcats to even the odds with Zeroes called the Thach Weave.

[@smittywjmj]

Officially termed the 'beam defense position', the Thach Weave would also later be adapted into the larger 'loose deuce' formation used in Vietnam.

[@dianapennepacker6854]

Yeah. Also on top of that wouldn't they only ever dive on the Zeroes, using the weight and engine to gain speed, and then try to gain altitude. Basically never getting into a turning fight IIRC. One correction - Corsair the was the better aircraft and no one will convince me otherwise! Best fighter of the war!

[@glennheth3472]

@@dianapennepacker6854 Until it had to land on a carrier :P

[@HansPolak]

When he mentioned Thach, I was looking forward to hearing about the Thach weave… and was disappointed. A missed opportunity in my opinion.

[@roberteltze4850]

@@glennheth3472 the British figured out how to deal with the landing problems so it wasn't that bad.

[@yes_head]

I'd add to the Zero's amazing attributes it's range. It's not something that matters much in a dogfight, but it allowed Japanese planners a lot more flexibility when it came to tasking their fighters.

[@neilwilson5785]

Indeed. Range was a key factor in the design. The Pacific is a big ocean.

[@MsZeeZed]

While that’s true the 3,000ml range of the Zero also meant that Japan relied on that rather than building more intermediate airbases in the Pacific. The result was the pilots were forced to fly much longer offensive missions which caused more air frame wear & more pilot exhaustion, which meant less offensive missions.

[@JihoonJKim]

It did matter to some extent for dog fighting; It allowed them a lot of room for when it came to ambushing / achieving maximum altitude. Better capabilities often meant way less if you were shot down from the direction of the sun.

[@andrewtaylor940]

Yes and no. The Zero’s incredible range came at a cost. And a cost that came due over the Solomon’s. In order to achieve the Zero’s high performance agility, climb rate and range, they had to sacrifice as much weight as they could. One of the key places they reduced weight was in the amount of ammo the Zero carried. About 7 seconds of cannon ammo, and around 25-30 seconds of machine gun. This became a problem when they started going up against the durable and well armored “Grumman’s”. For all practical purposes each Zero carried enough ammo to shoot down 1 Wildcat, Hellcat or Avenger. Whereas a skilled Wildcat or Hellcat pilot carried enough ammo aloft to down up to 5-6 zeros. The plane had 1,100 miles range. But ran out of ammo in seconds once it got there. This is why almost all of the IJN’s elite pre-war pilots died to Wildcats over Guadalcanal. The Zero’s would fly for hours only to have limited effect once they arrived. The Zero typically needed most or all of their cannon ammo to down a Wildcat. The Wildcat only needed a 3 second burst from 2 of their 6 brownings to set a zero aflame. They carried 30 seconds of ammo in each gun, and the guns could be selectively fired in pairs to conserve ammo. So 90 seconds of effective ammo per plane. And the Wildcats were fighting over their base. They could land and rearm in minutes. They had at least an hours notice that the Zeros were incoming. More than enough time to get above the Zero’s max ceiling to wait for them. (After taking some time for breakfast, coffee, and visiting the latrine before taking off). It was a lousy calculus for the Zero. And then the Hellcats started showing up in ‘43.

[@EliteF22]

The sacrifice for range also included the armor and self-sealing fuel tanks. This design and doctrinal restraint affected all Japanese designs until the late war when more powerful engines allowed them to finally begin designing larger and heavier planes with all capabilities of their opposite counterparts. Of course too late, and that there were not enough trained pilots available.

[@glennheth3472]

With the Hellcat, Grumman took all the good points of the F4F, addressed the flaws, and built and built an absolute beast.

[@smittywjmj]

Not entirely. The F6F had plenty of problems of its own due to the rapid design process and low-cost manufacture. It wasn't fully flush-riveted which is very unusual for a mid-1943 fighter, and its ram-air induction scoop was poorly-designed and basically didn't work at all, losing a lot of power at lower altitudes with the auxiliary blower in neutral. The F8F Bearcat was the actual replacement for the F4F Wildcat, as Grumman had begun development on the Bearcat immediately after. Their work was interrupted by the outbreak of war and the need for a temporary stopgap fighter, which became the F6F.

[@Tom-jw7ii]

Another thing is that the Hellcat was too big for the smaller escort carriers, so it could never fully replace the Wildcat.

[@thanakonpraepanich4284]

@@Tom-jw7ii I know Casablanca Class and Ranger were too small to operate Hellcat, but which other classes cannot launch them either for whatever reason?

[@ramal5708]

It goes the same to TBF Avengers, Grumman literally brought back the surviving TBF Avenger after Midway for an assessment, they improved the design a bit, making it the best carrier based torpedo bomber in WWII. Grumman really cared about improvement and combat performance of their production aircraft

[@Tom-jw7ii]

@@thanakonpraepanich4284 I couldn’t find any other ships that for sure couldn’t operate Hellcats. However, there were a lot of Casablanca-class ships.

[@nevilleneville6518]

It's a crucial point about pilot training. The way the USN was able to train so many pilots to a high standard was incredible. At wars end they had 6000 trained pilots sat waiting to be assigned a squadron...

[@scottjackson1420]

My Uncle Jimmy was one of those pilots. They were awaiting assignment for the anticipated invasion of Japan, and they assumed the casualty rates would be horrific. My dad told me that his brother confided in him in Pensacola that he didn't expect to survive the war.

[@johnludmon7419]

The Japanese naval pilots were classed as an elite. Prior to the war, it took 2 years to train them and they didn't rotate them out to train new pilots. This resulted in when the Americans sank the carriers at Midway, virtually all the elite Japanese pilots being lost in one go. They never really recovered from this, and there was a considerable drop in the quality of the pilots.

[@Rexzilla10]

"Hey, all you turds we trained to drop bombs over Berlin? Well instead youre gonna need to fly transport planes through the Soviet zone and airlift fuck tons of food there instead."

[@t5ruxlee210]

USN Catalinas and submarines were also tasked with detecting/ rescuing downed allied airmen as part off their overall mission. The IJN, not so much.

[@wirelessone2986]

Crucial point is the Pratt and Whitney R2800...everything after that is secondary..its the king of motors

[@PappyGunn]

THANK YOU for stating that the Hellcat was not specifically designed to fight the Zero. It is a misconception that lasts to this day. Most people don't know that every US aircraft that fought in WW2 was already in advanced design or prototype before the war. Even the B-29.

[@asteropax6469]

The Hellcat was not designed specifically to beat the Zero but something happened during 1942 that caused that myth; The Akutan Zero mentioned at 5:41 The F6F Hellcat had several prototypes being tested when the Akutan Zero was salvaged and studied. Between the tactic changes, improved training, and overall performance of the Hellcat following its introduction to the Pacific theater in 1943, it became easy to say it was designed to beat the Zero.

[@tonyennis1787]

The Mustang was designed after the Battle of Britain was over. So 'before the war'... maybe for the USA, but not for the Brits, who were the ones to work up the specs.

[@nickdanger3802]

@@tonyennis1787 "who were the ones to work up the specs." What specs ?

[@bdub1682]

​@Nick Danger the British originally contracted NAA to build p40s but they decided to submit a new design that eventually became the p51

[@peceed]

@@asteropax6469 It was designed to beat everything Japan could produce. Specifically Zero.

[@roberteltze4850]

The Hellcat looked enough like the Wildcat that the Japanese didn't realize it was a new plane for a while. There were cases where a Zero with a Hellcat on it's tail would go into a climb that would cause a Wildcat to stall if it tried to follow. So the Zero pilot would go into the climb thinking the plane on it's tail would either stall or not be able to follow, either way it would the Zero the chance to get on the Wildcats tail. But a Hellcat could climb right along with the Zero to the point where the Zero would stall and that was the end of the Zero pilot.

[@CrystalKingdomGeneral4942]

Ah, yes. Toshiuki Sueda. I take it you've watched the Dogfights episode: The Zero Killer?

[@rElliot09]

That's based on one pilot's perspective from a single fight. No proof it was common.

[@sox5131]

@@rElliot09 The Hellcat's kill to death ratio disagrees with you.

[@rElliot09]

@@sox5131 No idea but its actual kill total is less than the 5,000 kills claimed. The US generally over claimed by 3 to 6:1. Even if we go with the claims, the FM2 Wildcat still holds the highest kill ratio of 33:1 in WWII.

[@paulmcwilliams1709]

@@CrystalKingdomGeneral4942 I loved that show Dogfights on the History Channel, when they used to show history shows!

[@steveb6103]

My father was trained in the Wildcat and then the Hellcat. And was a pilot on the USS Essex. Then was transferred to the USS Hornet . The replacement for the one that was sunk.

[@2x2is22]

Let us never forget your father nor his generation. The light of freedom would not be shining in this world if it wasn't for them

[@SlumberJake]

My grandpa was a radioman on USS Essex.

[@jakestrickland9728]

That’s really cool to hear. My great grandpa was a hellcat pilot on the hornet!

[@combativeThinker]

@@2x2is22 Even then, that light is dimming by the day. We’ll have need of another generation like theirs before too much longer.

[@SargonTheGrape]

My great grandfather served on the Hornet too! Small world. I wonder if they ever crossed paths.

[@gar6446]

Zero introduced 1940, around 1000hp. Hellcat introduced 1943. Equivalent in Europe 1940, spitfire 1000 hp, 100 octane fuel, Me109E around the same, larger engine poorer fuel. By 1943, the G model and Spit IX are around 1600 hp. Given that high altitude performance wasn't really a priority for a naval fighter, a 1350 hp engine should have kept the zero competitive in 43-44. Instead, they got very modest upgrades and sacrificed armour and range just to get that. In 1940, the Japanese pilots were highly trained, motivated, and experienced. The vast majority of these were burned through by '44. The Axis policy of keeping pilots in the line allowed a few who survived to rack up huge scores. Tha Allies tended to rotate but had huge training setups. This, along with the massive numerical advantages, meant the average allied pilot was far better trained and at least had a chance of surviving. The totalitarian military regimes lack regard for their own men, ultimately costing them dearly

[@ramal5708]

I would also say in terms of USN pilots, after certain amount of frontline combat sorties, aerial kills or large scale engagements, the pilots would be immediately sent home and order said pilots to train and teach the new recruits about their experience in aerial combat, carrier ops and combat missions in general, this is why even new carrier pilots have some insight, inspiration about being frontline aviator once they arrived at the front. Also the USN converted two paddle steamer ships to training aircraft carriers in Great Lakes to train pilots on carrier landings and take offs.

[@TheDuckofDoom.]

The Zero had excellent range, far more than allied fighters.

[@gaoxiaen1]

Just like Russia's infantry in Ukraine.

[@gaoxiaen1]

@@TheDuckofDoom. And very poor survivability if hit, unlike allied fighters.

[@SA-qm3bp]

All that impressive detail yet you talk about the Me109: it’s the Bf109 if you want to display your knowledge

[@Nivola1953]

I once saw a couple of A6M zero at the Thunder over Michigan airshow on the Ypsilanti Willow Run airport. What really surprised me was the size of the ailerons on the Zero. If you look carefully at the pictures, you’ll realise that on most if not al other fighters, the ailerons are about 1/3 of the wingspan, instead the Zero ailerons are about 2/3 of the span, this is similar to the size on acrobatic planes like the Extra 300 and will give you an astounding roll rate, the Zero was designed almost like an acrobatic plane!

[@smittywjmj]

Actually the ailerons and wings on the Zero were redesigned a few times, because earlier models had terrible roll rates. They didn't have the materials that modern planes do, and the Zero is substantially heavier and faster than most aerobatic planes, so the oversized ailerons on the A6M2 were massively inefficient at creating a rolling moment. In response, the ailerons were shortened for the A6M3 variant (to a little more than half the span), then the entire wing was shortened, including the outboard area of the ailerons, on the A6M5 to assist roll rate and speed.

[@brianking5092]

The airshows I've attended used T6 Texans modified to look like a Zero. I've never seen an actual Zero fly.

[@vinnynj78]

@@brianking5092 Even in the 1970 film Tora! Tora! Tora! they used converted Texans. A restored Zero flew for the first time about 6 or 7 years ago but I don't know if it has ever traveled outside of Japan. I read somewhere that there are a few other flyable models but I do not know who has them.

[@BeingFireRetardant]

Yay Ypsi

[@sambrown6426]

It had a great roll rate at low speeds, yes. But at high speeds, it would experience elevator reversal, wherein the forces of the ailerons would twist the wings, greatly reducing the effectiveness of the ailerons, and resulting in much poorer maneuverability.

[@crissagram]

My Grandpa was a Hellcat mechanic during the war. He would spend hours gushing about how great the plane was, especially the engine.

[@maxoutyoutlife5261]

All historical accounts show that both pilots and crew loved the hellcat. She was easy to learn to fly, easy to maintain and repair, and could take a beating and dish out hellfire. My fav plane of all time.

[@TJkiwiOWEG]

airplanes are scary

[@ethanmagdaleno5332]

And cool

[@sputniktechno3203]

​@@ethanmagdaleno5332 indeed

[@monketok141]

Scareplanes

[@pilotdave1000]

Lol what?

[@fegenein862]

there could be an airplane outside your house right now

[@sess122]

My former father-in-law was in the Pacific "island hopping" campaign for 4 years, starting in Australia and finishing up in Tokyo. He was a top notch mechanic and ended up helping maintain and run the Navy landing craft. He told me, in his opinion, the P38 Lightning made a big difference in helping take out the Jap Zeros because of it's superior power, ability to climb higher and travel much greater distances.

[@brianglenn526]

BTW, P-38 role & success in Europe, compared with its role & success in Pacific is a great story

[@altblechasyl_cs2093]

But, this was USAAF... not operating from carriers. 😂

[@Meyer-gp7nq]

P-38 was one of the best aircraft of the war. Those things were faster than anything else, except the German jets, and a pair of P-38s could easily dominate a Me262 if flown right

[@michaeldavid6284]

It should be noted that the Wildcats flown by Marine pilots on Guadalcanal more than held their own against the Zero and were responsible for more than a few Japanese planes and pilots being lost. They quickly learned not to take on the Zero on its terms and used the Wildcats advantages along with teamwork to achieve their successes.

[@EthanLuurtsema]

Thank you for addressing this. The Wildcat deserves more spotlight for being the only naval fighter to hold the line against the Japanese in 1942

[@juneabbey9538]

Yes, this. Alongside the Wildcats, also P-39s (which did more good work than most people think) and a lot of P-40s. (Australian and American P-40s also did most of the heavy lifting over New Guinea - Spitfires and P-38s arrived later and were more than useful, but the humble P-40 did the hard yards.)

[@TheKusa5]

The F6F is my favorite fighter of the war, am very glad to see a video on it from one of my favorite youtubers!

[@thanakonpraepanich4284]

The old girl P40 Warhawk still have special place in my video game hangar though. My country's Army Air Service is one of the few places that operate P36, P40, Hayabusa and looted CW21 out of the same hangar doesn't hurt it chance either.

[@colindunnigan8621]

I read someplace that the Hellcat had a wing area larger than that of the P-47 Thunderbolt. Truly a beast of a plane.

[@smittywjmj]

It does, by about 12%. It's not unusual for carrier planes to have relatively larger wings since they have to land at slower speeds, the F4U Corsair also has a larger wing area than most P-47 variants.

[@robertshaver4432]

In fact the Hellcat had more wing area than any single engine fighter of WWll. Bar none!

[@Doc_Paradox]

It needed the extra wing space to provide more lift in order to counter the added weight of the pilots massive balls

[@robertshaver4432]

@@Doc_Paradox That's the truth!!!!! o7 Now think about the average age of the pilots and in fact the age of all of the "Warriers" within every armed service including the "Warriers" of the many involved countries in defining the phrase "giving their lives for our freedoms"! o7 times millions!

[@johnharris6655]

Never underestimate the value of training. The US would take our best Airforce and Navy pilots and send them home to train other pilots. Japan let their best pilots go down in combat. John Thatch was sent back home after Midway to teach other pilots what he knew about the Japanese and how to defeat the Zero.

[@benfrank9622]

Japan back then likes to throw men around like its a rock.

[@spikespa5208]

Doesn't matter the particular Pacific War subject. It just keeps coming around to the fact that the majority of the Japanese armed forces started that war clueless about how US industrial, financial, resource, and manpower advantages (combined with fact that they pissed the US off) were going to, in the end, overwhelm them.

[@johnharris6655]

@@spikespa5208 If we were not fighting Germany, the war with Japan would have been over in a year.

[@darylchristophermercado9583]

The Germans did the same with their aces due to shortages of pilots.

[@adamb8317]

​@@darylchristophermercado9583can't get more pilots if you don't have trainers.

[@bernieeod57]

During the Wake Island campaign, a rookie Ensign in a Hellcat fell for a trick used many time against the Wildcat by a Japanese veteran ace. He would go into a climb with the Wildcat in pursuit. The Wildcat would stall first and the Zero would flip over and shoot up the Wildcat spinning out of control. Only this time, when he flipped, he found himself staring down the muzzle of 6 .50 caliber machine guns in a perfectly stable Hellcat still climbing. One can imagine the Japanese Ace screaming his last words "Bandaska!!"

[@zjotheglorious]

@@danielebrparish4271 You read his comment wrong. He did say Wildcat came first, followed by hellcat later

[@danielebrparish4271]

@@zjotheglorious Thanks.

[@stevenw7623]

His last words would have been chikusho!! And then Okaasan….

[@combativeThinker]

“M-Masaka!”

[@kirbyculp3449]

"Uncontrollable Diarrhea!"

[@wolfu597]

On June 4th 1942, a Zero flown by a fresh pilot, named Tadayashi Koga, took off from the carrier Ryujo for an attack on Dutch harbor in the Aleutians. During the attack, his plane took an AA hit which cut his oil line. This forced him to make an emergency landing on the island of Akutan. But when the wheels touched down, their buried themselves into the marshy grounds, flipped the plane on its back and broke Koga's neck. 8:55. On July 11th, a PBY spotted the wreck through break in the clouds. After three attempts, the plane was salvaged and brought to San Diego for study and analysis. With the exception of a few cosmetic scuffles, the plane was in excellent conditions, and on September 26th 1942, it flew once again. And this time with US markings on its hull. Besides the lack of armor protections and bad performance at high altitude, they also discovered that it could not turn at high speed. And the poorly designed carburators caused the engine to sputter badly when diving at high speed. The lessons learned from this Zero, is what shaped the design and construction of the Hellcat.

[@smittywjmj]

Actually, the carburetor issue was because it had been repaired wrong. Not because of any fault of the engineers mind, they're looking at unfamiliar equipment and taking their best guesses. Can't hardly blame them for the occasional mistake. The Zero's carburetor operated a small negative-G auxiliary tank as would be later fitted to Merlin engines (which did have the problem you describe in earlier models), which enabled it to perform negative-G maneuvers for short times, just like American planes could.

[@oldgysgt]

This myth that the Akutan Zero influenced the design of the Hellcat is just that, a myth. The truth is the Akutan Zero was recovered mid July 1942, over two weeks AFTER the first XF6F-1 flew, (June 26, 1942). The Zero was repaired and first flew in the US on September 20 1942, almost two months AFTER the first XF6F-3 flew, (July 30, 1942). It's true that testing the Akutan Zero later influenced US combat tactics that were used against the Zero, but it didn't influenced the design of the American Hellcat fighter. The time line of the F6F-3 design, construction, first flight and manufacture, proves this fact! The F6F-3 Hellcat was put into quantity production on October 4, 1942, 11 days before the testing of the Akutan Zero was completed, and before the test pilot, (Lieutenant Commander Eddie R. Sanders), submitted his report. By the way, I got my information about the dates of the XF6F-1 AND XF6F-3 flights from the book 'War Planes of the Second World War', 'Fighters, Volume IV', by William Green. These books are a good read, and debunk a lot of the misinformation about WWII aircraft.

[@elixir4487]

Nah, it´s more of a fairy tale.

[@rElliot09]

Crack a book, as has been mentioned. This is a myth and any amount of research would show just that.

[@Sodbusterrod]

My late neighbor, Keith Nearhood, related to me he worked construction on a power plant in Dutch Harbor that summer and saw the Zero crated up on a dock. He would later join the Marines and fight in 2 landings and be awarded a Purple Heart with Oak Leaf cluster and a Silver Star with Oak Leaf cluster. A good neighbor and a good man. In late 1943 to early 44 my uncle was part of an AA unit in Massachusetts where 3 men would stand watch in church steeples. He was given a written commendation for spotting a Zero, a captured one used by the Navy. That fall he was turned into an infantry sgt and off to Patton’s army.

[@mcweddle]

At 8:55 of this video the Naval Aviator at the far right of the photo is my wife's grandfather Lt. Robert Larson. Standing on the wreckage of what would become known as the Akutan Zero, he is bending down to take a small souvenir from under the wing. This fighter was discovered crash landed on Akutan Island by his PBY crew after a Japanese attack on the U.S. Naval base on Attu Island in Alaska in 1942. The zero was recovered, restored, and flight tested to determine its flight capabilities. This was all done in the utmost secrecy. The American public was not even told that Alaska had been attacked until after the war. Lt. Larson's deployment was a secret and he couldn't tell his family where he was stationed. Look up Akutan Zero and read about it. It is worth your time if you are a fan of WWII history. Some say the discovery and testing of the Akutan Zero helped change the course of the air war in the Pacific.

[@joechang8696]

Saburo Sakai remarked that at the time he attended flight school, policy was to wash out a large percentage of the students, who already the chosen few at the start. this was often for silly reasons. late in the war, new pilots were so desperately needed that they passed marginal candidates. yet the good candidates who were washed out previously had already been sent back to their units were (much?) better than the new students being passed.

[@rubiconnn]

It seems like stubbornness, ignorance, and incompetence were the biggest factors in Japan's loss.

[@Mataninja]

​@@rubiconnn That and having a much smaller military compared to the U.S. of A.

[@RCAvhstape]

A high washout rate and hard training actually makes some sense before the war if your goal is to create an elite corps of killer fighter pilots. The Japanese Navy did just that, IJN pilots were basically samurai with airplanes. Look at the photos, they even carried their swords with them in the cockpit. The problem was that the hazing was so extreme and the system so stupidly inflexible that they didn't allow for expansion when they needed more pilots. Couple that with failing to rotate the veteran pilots back as instructors a la US Navy, and you wind up with a bunch of helpless newbs who can barely navigate let alone survive in combat.

[@giantgeoff]

Read the same sources . The U.S. knew it was going to produce unprecedented volume of aircraft and it would need an equal number of pilots. They didn't all need to be Navy fighter pilots. Yeager started as mechanic and Robert Johnson was a bomber pilot. There was also glider, transport, and ferrying.

[@joaoaguiar1714]

@@rubiconnn They definitely did harm to themselves by refusing to change their training and tactics until much too late, but really that just hastened the end for them. Realistically Japan was doomed if the USA decided to fight till destruction or victory, and the USA did. The Japanese entered the war believing/hoping they could cow the USA into giving up on the Pacific. Bad strategy, they had no go to hell plan, perhaps because their early victories were so easy they thought it would always be so.

[@3ducs]

My father was a F6f pilot on a small carrier steaming for Japan when news of the A-bombs and the end of the war was announced. He was very fond of the F6f, a stable gun platform. He later flew F9fs.

[@ramal5708]

My favorite Hellcat variant is the F6F-5N, the night fighter variant with two 20mm cannons and four Browning fifties, also adding to it a search radar for searching and tracking air and possibly surface contacts in the night.

[@combativeThinker]

That’s a solid loadout. If I was born back then and had a choice, I’d have preferred flying either one of those, or a P-61.

[@colinfolan7695]

Bro the us didn’t show any mercy💀

[@throbbinwood]

@@combativeThinker I love the P-61, not a Hellcat fan but the night-fighter version, especially flying off a a dedicated night ops carrier would have been awesome...ask me a few years later and I'm in a night-fighter Tigercat!

[@jayantadebnath781]

While the Rolls Royce Merlin helped win the air war over Europe, I would say the PR R2800 pretty much helped win the Pacific, to a larger extent too.

[@SirEpifire]

The double wasp, singlehandedly transformed America's horsepower goals for nearly every class of aircraft we were flying.

[@kenneth9874]

The R2800 double wasp was indispensable in Europe as well

[@aaronsanborn4291]

The P-47 had the 2800 as did the Corsair too

[@ramal5708]

Merlin didn't do quite well in terms of carrier service on the Seafire, although once it's in the air Seafire has that like carrier borne Spitfire Performance especially at high altitudes, but during take offs and landings on carrier or I should say aircraft spotting, they're one of the worst carrier fighter. Merlin is arguably one of the best mass produced engines for land based aircraft, while the radial Double Wasp is probably top 3 carrier aircraft engine during the war.

[@michaelw6277]

The R2800 in the Thunderbolt made the plane an absolute monster. It’s a shame that USAAF bomber pilot leadership, Hap Arnold in particular, was so dedicated to the “bomber will always get through” nonsense that they literally blocked official use of drop tanks on fighters because with those the P-47 had the legs to fly all the way to Berlin and back. A lot of bomber aircrews could have been saved along with their planes, but you know… dumb, stubborn, inflexible military leadership incapable of reading after action reports and allowing front line innovations because they can’t give up on a losing idea they had gone all-in on.

[@scottlarson1548]

In his great book "Zero", pilot and officer Masatake Okumiya described how the Zero was an astonishing plane at the beginning of the war therefore the Japanese simply could not believe that the new planes the Americans were flying could possibly be better in any way.

[@FrancisFjordCupola]

Shows how much one can trust their MkI eyeballs. Things like armor and self-sealing fuel tanks are not that evident. Giving little thought as to what happens when the plane gets hit dooms a plane.

[@Aredel]

Good ol’ “superior warrior culture” for ya.

[@edsmale]

You need quotes, this is simple plagiarism

[@scottlarson1548]

@@edsmale That's hilarious!

[@Aredel]

@@edsmale yes. And what’ll you do if he doesn’t?

[@JohnShields-xx1yk]

My uncle piloted the F4 Phantom in Vietnam, I remember when I talked to him on leave at Christmas 1970, I was 10 years old and in awe. Thank God for all who served and to those who serve today. 🇺🇸

[@BritIronRebel]

My Father flew the Hellcat in the Pacific Theatre earlier then was switched to the F4U Corsair later in the war. He loved the Corsair....which I have some old black and white photos of him in the cockpit.

[@mattedwards4533]

Very good and accurate video. There was one factor you didn't mention that I think cost The Japanese dearly, that being Japanese pilots were to late figuring out that that the Hellcat wasn't a Wildcat. One of the best ploys of the Japanese pilots was to go into a climb due to the fact that could out climb the Wildcat but not knowing that they were after Hellcats instead of Wildcats caught them off guard costing them some very good pilots and planes that were hard to replace. Another problem for the Japanese was they didn't know their code had been broken given the Americans another advantage.

[@davidh6300]

I'm a big fan of the Grumman design philosophy - maki it simple, make it strong and make it work.

[@TheNerdForAllSeasons]

Ironworks is the greatest name for an aircraft designer ever.

[@iamnolegend2519]

I love that you produce the Intel Report to go more “behind the scenes” of the Operations Rooms videos.

[@oldfrend]

best story i've heard about hellcat vs zero: a japanese ace knew very well the differences between his zero and the wildcat; namely the zero could out climb a wildcat all day. so whenever a wildcat got on his tail he'd just pull up, and the 'cat would lose energy and stall well before his zero. then he'd just turn around and take his time gunning down the stalling cat. not so with a hellcat. with its stupid powerful engine it could outclimb a zero. so the zero ace pulled this maneuver thinking he had a wildcat on his tail ( cuz the two cats look virtually identical visually). levels out at the top of his climb just to see the hellcat still glued to his ass. he was dead soon after.

[@RicoJuan1998]

Japanese were better anyways

[@thedyingmeme6]

​@@RicoJuan1998 ?????

[@arsenal-slr9552]

My absolute favorite plane. Looks so intimidating, clean, sharp, mean. So awesome

[@terrenceprzybylski3226]

The American pilots ,were so brave and fearless, they are my heroes. God bless those men.

[@andrewlayton9760]

I've always had great admiration for Britain's 303 squadron.

[@nick.1237]

The hellcat is my favorite aircraft and it’s good to see it gets some love!

[@sr7129]

Let’s not forget that even with all the disadvantages, the Wildcat still held a 6 to 1 kill/loss ratio.

[@twotone3471]

The Wildcat lived on with being flown from "Jeep" carriers like the ones that fought famously with "Taffy Three" that faced down the Japanese battleship fleet.

[@miquelescribanoivars5049]

Not against Zero's but against all aircraft types.

[@gaoxiaen1]

@@twotone3471 The Hellcats proved that the Zeroes were inferior because the Japs never upgraded their fighters. That was just plain stupid. It might have worked out better if the Japanese Army and Navy weren't enemies.

[@twotone3471]

@@gaoxiaen1 What? The Zero was improved during the war, and Japan did build newer planes like the Mitsubishi A7M. Don't confuse Japan losing the war with thinking the US had better planes. It had better pilots and more of them, that's why the US won.

[@gaoxiaen1]

@@twotone3471 And better planes.

[@737smartin]

From the F4s losing ratio to 13-to-1 for the HellCat is one heck of an upgrade!

[@TLTeo]

The F4F did not have a losing kill:loss ratio, it was around 6:1 (admittedly, that includes more than just the Zero and Oscar). Even the Dauntless was a little over 1:1, the only bomber in ww2 to achieve that.

[@virginiascurti5036]

@@TLTeo Exactly once we stopped dog fighting the zero and used better tactics (boom and zoom) taking advantage of speed and dive advantage for energy conservation.

[@737smartin]

@@TLTeo Thanks for the update! Certainly not the impression I got from the video here. 👍

[@froggystyle8270]

It was actually 6.9 to 1

[@chrishawkinson8846]

From Pearl Harbor through Midway, when Japanese naval aviation was at the peak of its powers, US Navy F4Fs killed Type 0s at a rate of about 1.5:1 in fighter versus fighter combat. This includes the epic combat between six F4F-4s from Fighting Three against upwards of 35 Type 0s flying combat air patrol over Kido Butai at Midway, where Thach and his pilots shot down 5 or 6 Zeros for the loss of one plane shot down and one damaged beyond repair after a barrier landing on YORKTOWN. All of this was at a time when the Japanese pilots were very well trained and many had combat experience in China and the USN was still working largely from pre-war doctrine. USMC and USN pilots flying F4Fs had a bit harder time during the Guadalcanal campaign (mostly due to the plane's low climb rate) but they still shot down more Zeros than they lost to the Japanese fighter. The F4F had some weaknesses, and upgrading to F6Fs and F4Us eliminated many of those weaknesses. But it also had plenty of strengths and when flown and fought to minimize its weakness and accentuate its strengths F4Fs more than held its own against Type 0s.

[@Draconisrex1]

Glad to see you got the F6F right. So many of the Mil-Channels get even the basic details wrong. Your channel is, truly, a gem even if you didn't say a single thing I didn't know (I'm old (62) and I've been reading military history books for 50-years now and have an extensive, personal libary).

[@demonhunter5520]

Sure there's the Hellcat. But my heart belongs to the Corsair, with its inverted gull wings, 11:1 kill ratio, and its distinctive whistling sound it makes when it dives.

[@Thomas-om8ut]

The Corsair arrived first and eliminated many of Japan's more experienced pilots.

[@andrewlayton9760]

Grumman's design team, which included my late uncle, spent massive amounts of time working with Navy pilots (including Jimmy Thach and James Flatley) during the design evolution of the F6F. While it was not designed from the beginning as a "Zero killer," it WAS designed to accommodate upgrades and changes easily. The speed with which Grumman made production upgrades made it a Zero-killer by the time production hit full rate.

[@rogertompkins656]

Worked with a fellow Harry Atwater who was one of the Black Sheep Squadron and who shot down 3 zeros. Mentioned how quickly the zero would come apart when hit. Sad how many of these great guys are gone now. Lost another a few months ago. Mike Modica. A belly gunner in a B-17. He had to parachute out over Yugoslavia. Landed in a tree in the middle of a battle between the Germans and the partisans. A great story. Stayed with the partisans for a few weeks and was then turned over to the Russians and finally got back to his base in Italy six weeks later. My only war story, I did see a ship torpedoed in Mass. Bay, but I was just a kid then but did my part hunting down scrap metal for the cause. My favorite memory is all the young fellows in their sailor suits. Looked so sharp. Now adays they all look like dumpster divers .Signed - grumpy old man!

[@theodoreolson8529]

0:50 LCDR Thach, no second "t". I made the mistake of spelling it with a second "t" once when I took a print of a radio message I wanted signed to the Captain for signature. I was corrected with enthusiasm 🙂 I'm obligated to point this out because my first ship in the Navy was USS THACH (FFG 43). She is resting comfortably on the sea floor off the coast of the Hawaiian islands. I hope one of the Constellation class frigates will get this name as well. I enjoy your videos very much, thanks for your hard work.

[@Anthony-jo7up]

Thanks

[@andrewlayton9760]

Sorry, we will have to wait until the list of 'rainbow' names has been exhausted.

[@nickname3471]

Hey Keith, Thankyou for the great content again. Many Cheers from Australia..

[@mencken8]

Glad this video (eventually) addressed the pilot issue. So many videos harp on hardware, hardware, hardware. But the technical discrepancies in machinery didn’t matter much given the U.S. ability to massively outproduce opponents in both the European and Pacific Theaters. When this is added to the Japanese (or German, for that matter) inability to replace experienced pilots due to attrition of combat, the result was inevitable.

[@tomservo5347]

I bought the great book 'Mission Beyond Darkness' used a couple of years ago online. When I received it in the mail I was pleasantly surprised (and honored) to find out that it was a first edition print signed by an actual F6F pilot from the 'Hell's Kittens' squadron equipped with the Hellcat. The pilots loved the plane not only for it's armored protection and performance but also because it was a very forgiving and easy to fly aircraft that was predictable without any odd stall/handling quirks.

[@auxityne]

I love the F6F. It's the world's angriest barrel.

[@ph89787]

The F4F. The world’s most frustrated barrel.

[@fjb4932]

There's an aircraft in your future learning called the A-10. The world's angriest Barrels . . .

[@BeingFireRetardant]

A1-D Skyraider has entered the chat...

[@poormanselectronicsbench2021]

If you frequent Aviation museums, look for a display of a F8F, you won't be disappointed.

[@3ducs]

@@poormanselectronicsbench2021 A real hotrod. Smaller though. The F7 is another fighter that was too late to get into the war. My father was a F6f pilot on a small carrier steaming for Japan when the A-bombs were dropped. I have a photo of him and his cousin posing in Japan with one of the mini-submarines. The battle for Japan was projected to be a bloodbath for both sides.

[@estern001]

I'm eating this up! Naval Aviation history at it's finest. This Brown Shoe appreciates your knowledge and effort. Thank you!

[@FlyingCircusPeanut]

I think what everyone seems to be missing here is (and this many historians have agreed), that given the choice between piloting an A6M2 and an F6F (or F4F even) in a one time, one-on-one dogfight I would prefer the A6M2 simply for it's maneuverability, that's it. Though to pilot one and hopefully survive throughout an entire war... I'd definitely want to be in the Grumman. Sturdy airframe (safer landings), armor, speed, more than enough ammunition to get your job done, strafe surface targets, properly defend both yourself AND your friends up there, kill, make extra kills and spray when you're not sure of your aim (every shot not taken is a shot missed), to have the redundancy of six useful guns instead of the Zero's two for when jams/freezings happen. Knowing that you WILL be shot at and most likely from your six means your self sealing fuel tanks and armored seat will nullify the Zero's rifle caliber cowling guns once his pitiful supply of 20mm's run dry or jam. The Zero's extended range may be his greatest weakness... with the possibility of such a long journey back to his carrier or aerodrome he is in greater danger of dying both due to physical wounds which could have been prevented by the addition or armor, or death/stranded at sea due to fuel fire or engine failure which could have been prevented by self sealing fuel tanks. Piloting such a hazardous aircraft as the A6M2 must have been a harrowing ordeal... There is simply no contest. As young airman in the pacific theater, I'd take the Grumman over the A6M2 any day. 👍

[@FlyingCircusPeanut]

A Zero could fully dump both .30cal cowling belts into the six of an F6F with the American's armored seat absorbing the entirety of the assault. He may still end up ditching his aircraft, but he may still survive.

[@smith7602]

Better climb and high altitude performance means you get to pick the fights though. The Cats will just stay overhead and boom and zoom if the Zero won't climb to meet them. If the Zero does climb, they have reduced high altitude performance.

[@gort8203]

That's because you'd be doing a 1V1 cage match dogfight like you do in video games instead of flying how pilots really flew back then. Speed and climb were the coin of the realm, not turn radius. The airplane with superior speed and climb controlled the engagement. Nobody asked for a slower airplane that could turn tighter. A tight turn radius may let you dodge a fighter making a fast pass at you, but it will not let you shoot him down unless he does something stupid.

[@FlyingCircusPeanut]

@@gort8203 Pretty much and high altitude performance.

[@joewelch4933]

@@smith7602 The wildcat was an adequate match to the zero so long as you didnt play the zeros game. I am unsure why the popular myth that the wildcat was so outclassed still exists even among some historians, it just isn't true if you look at the actual statistics.

[@mrc6182]

I am the grandson of a U.S. Navy Aviator who began his long career flying PBY's on U-Boat patrol out of a base in Brazil before getting carrier-qualified and joining Spruance's fleet in the Pacific. He started in Wildcats, then rotated into Hellcats soon after they became available. The Wildcats, by the way, remained in service throughout the war on escort carriers as they those vessels couldn't handle the higher-performance Hellcats. Thank you for this story! We rarely hear anything about these formidable airplanes as most WW2 stories are dominated by heavy bombers and P-51 and P-47 fighters. My late grandfather was a Hellcat fanatic, though, and remained one during a career that started with PBY's and ended with F-14's.

[@viper2148]

Even by conservative estimates the F4F Wildcat had at least a 2-to-1 kill-to-loss ratio over the A6M Zero.

[@thanakonpraepanich4284]

Even in Solomon when the Japanese sortie their flight instructors hoping for the best result possible, it still wasn't enough?

[@daniel-leejones8396]

Another superbly recearched and presented video by the operations room, top marks.

[@DanH-u3f]

By this time, Japan had lost most of its best Zero pilots. Most Zero pilots at this time were new and didn't stand a chance.

[@mikeat2637]

To me, the biggest reason for the astounding performance of the USN fighter pilots in their F6F's against the Japanese Zero is the simple fact that the fighter pilots that made up the Japanese carrier air groups were woefully green and hadn't had any real combat training. At the time of Philippine Sea, the experience of the Japanese pilots and aircrew was worse than minimal. This was caused by the poor pilot training programs of the Japanese military and the loss of so many experienced pilots and aircrew during the Solomons and New Guinea Campaigns. it was the death knell for the air arm of the IJN .

[@patrickb1303]

Also helps that by the time the hellcat came around a lot of the veteran Japanese pilots were dead. Probably helped the 13-1 kill ratio.

[@Warmaker01]

It has to be said that the F4F Wildcat was what the US Navy & Marine Corps used in beating Japanese air power in the Pacific for the critical year of 1942 and the early parts of 1943. 1942 was where we had the 4 Carrier Duels: Coral Sea, Midway, Eastern Solomons, and Santa Cruz Islands. Over the course of 1942-1943 was when the Wildcats fought over Guadalcanal with the Cactus Air Force. In this era, the Wildcat fought the Imperial Japanese Navy's air service when it still had their high quality air crews... And won. By the time the Corsair and Hellcat entered service, the heart of experience in the IJN's air service were mostly dead. The Wildcat saw the US through the critical years of 1942-1943. For sure the newer planes starting to appear in 1943 really sealed the win. They gave US air power the better weapons it needed to win the skies of the Pacific Theater. But the Wildcat saw America through the darkest years in the Pacific, back when Imperial Japan could still count on having quality air crews.

[@juneabbey9538]

Exactly right, @Warmaker01. Credit also to the Kittyhawk which did most of the land-based 1942 & 1943 heavy lifting, and even the now-forgotten P-39 did its bit.

[@EnterpriseXI]

Holy cow. I never knew the nose machine guns on the Zero were Maxim type guns

[@smittywjmj]

They're derived from the Vickers, except air-cooled.

[@colbunkmust]

Type 97 light machine guns are an aircraft variant(air cooled) copy of the Vickers MG, which was an improvement over the Maxim gun. Vickers bought out the Maxim company and flipped the operating mechanism upside down in the gun which allowed the gun to be a lot lighter.

[@janchovanec8624]

Good content. Few major errors to correct: Zero was designed with long range in mind. Everything else has been limited to this one single demand. The other correction would be claiming F-6F's had a superior climb rate, which they did NOT have unless we are talking of altitudes above 8km.

[@Valorius]

The Corsair is better at everything (except safely landing on a carrier, lol) but the Hellcat was definitely a huge upgrade over the Wildcat.

[@TempusFugit1159]

There was a special Pacific theater combat edition of "Flight Journal" with interviews of Japanese pilots including Saburo Sakai; every one of them considered the Hellcat more dangerous in air to air combat in spite of the Corsair's advantages on paper.

[@thanakonpraepanich4284]

What else gave Corsair its notoriety of killing newbies if you look at her sideway, while Hellcat was such a mild-manner, forgiving lady?

[@sntslilhlpr6601]

@@thanakonpraepanich4284 Same reason why a Cirrus is more unstable than a Cessna. Higher performance often = less stability. Same reason why modern fighters need fly by wire and a computer to constantly compensate. The Hellcat was an incredibly stable plane with its large straight wings. The Corsair was a more radical design and sacrificed stability for more speed, maneuverability, and turning efficiency (read: it loses less speed for the same turn rate). And while a Hellcat was better at slower speeds vs a Corsair in a clean configuration, the latter's maneuvering flaps more than made up for it. Though that's kinda neither here nor there because getting slow and turning with a Zero was absolutely not part of the doctrine and would probably get you killed. But still, the Corsair was really an amazing plane for the time.

[@Rocketsong]

The one other item the Hellcat was better at was cost. By 1945 we were flying Corsairs off of carriers. But in 43, it made more sense to build Hellcats when they could be built 3 for every 2 Corsairs.

[@johnlee1297]

@@sntslilhlpr6601 The F-16 was designed with less stability in exchange for maneuverability. It was the first fly by wire fighter, which is what made it possible.

[@paulsteaven]

Based on post war reports, the Japanese pilots were more wary to the Lightnings and Corsairs than the Hellcat even though the latter is the more widely used US mid and late war fighter in the Pacific.

[@ryanjonathanmartin3933]

Of course! Because the Corsair and P-38 obviously had better performance.

[@mgt2010fla]

Maybe that is because you have to be alive at the end of the war to give your opinion.

[@paulsteaven]

@@mgt2010fla they already have that opinion during the Guadalcanal campaign or mid part of the war.

[@garyleibitzke4166]

It's too bad the F8F Bearcat came out too late to be used in combat. I just wonder how it would have faired.

[@b3j8]

Many Wildcat pilots would've said the same about the F6f Hellcat! By the time the Hellcat was deployed in large numbers many if not most of Japan's best carrier pilots were dead.

[@ramal5708]

In 1942 the USN carriers were in constant action, same goes for half of 1943 also even if Hellcats were introduced, they weren't available in large numbers in fall of 1942 or early 1943. Also US only have like 2 operational fleet carriers in the frontline, while the Essex class carriers are still being commissioned, that's why Hellcats only available from Essex class carriers once they arrived in frontline of Pacific, Enterprise and Saratoga would get their Hellcats during their refit in the US ny late 1943.

[@poormanselectronicsbench2021]

I didn't see a Bearcat fly, but, I did get to see one in Navy colors in the EAA museum in Oshkosh in the mid 90's, and all came away with was, totally impressive.

[@danielebrparish4271]

It would've been outclassed by the Sabre Jet that was already in development. Just saw an interview with a B-17 pilot who had seen U.S. jets being flown in the Southwest before he shipped out to Europe in late '44. His group was attacked by an ME262 and it wasn't the first time he had seen a propellerless plane. The jet engine was developed in England and first flew in April of '41 at 371 MPH at 25,000 ft.

[@nuanil]

@@poormanselectronicsbench2021 There's currently a Bearcat making the rounds on the airshow circuits. At least as of last summer.

[@timalexander7758]

Killing it as usual! THANK YOU!!!!

[@robertortiz-wilson1588]

Your content is phenomenal! Thank you!

[@joshuapatrick682]

The golden age of fighter aviation and I love it, they were winging it so fast that it boggles the mind man…

[@stephenbesley3177]

Even a Brit csn appreciate the qualities of the F6F. Constently (and criminally) ignored on youtuber top tens ffor reasons that escape me, the Hellcat should always be up there. A great warplane worthy of our allies best.

[@chrisnizer5702]

20mm cannons look good on paper but they had a lower muzzle velocity, lower rate of fire, and because the rounds were so big the Zero could only carry about 60 rounds. 50 caliber packed more than enough punch, hundreds of rounds were available for each gun, and the MUCH higher rate of fire gave the pilot a better chance of scoring a hit than the slow firing cannons in the Zero. Of course someone else may have a different opinion. Thanks for the video my friend, Semper Fidelis!

[@cccp319801spetsnaz]

The Americans first learned of how good Japanese planes were from the American Volunteer Group based in China.

[@bugtesties]

Thank god for proximity fuses too they saved so many lives and are rarely talked about

[@justandy333]

A very good video as per usual! Its interesting to see more of the Pacific Campaign being covered. Being British my knowledge of this theatre of war is still a bit patchy at best. But a good solid video demonstrating how the hellcat was such a Beast in the East! Well done sir.

[@danielebrparish4271]

Get a copy of The Pacific War Trilogy by Ian Toll. You'll love it.

[@johngaither9263]

You Brits had your hands full in Europe. The BPF is excused for not showing up in the Pacific before March of 1945. It made a substantial contribution in the short time it had to conduct combat operations and Admirals Kings best efforts to deny it any action at all.

[@pekkakoski6595]

The operations room keeps delivering, thank you.

[@jeffe9842]

A very informative and interesting video. Thanks for doing it. I learned something from it.

[@stevenwilgus8982]

Excellent production. I liked and subscribed. Factual but not dry, conclusions but not off the chain wild ideas at all. Very well done and I look forward to more if your presentations.

[@Mike-H_UK]

Excellent video, very informative and enjoyable.

[@robbabcock_]

What a terrific video! This channel is really hitting its stride.😎🔥🙌

[@Nivola1953]

Why at 3:48 the picture of the USS ESSEX has an angled deck, with a twin engine S2 Tracker and Korean war time airplanes? 🤔🤔 Oh, maybe this is the Essex after she was recommissioned in the ‘50 with a new flight deck, oops!🤭🤷🏻‍♂️

[@HollywoodMarine0351]

Yup! I saw it too. Editor needs to double check his work.

[@gyrene_asea4133]

Yeah. A real lazy mistake and took some away from my enjoyment of the video. You'd think that the presenter would have known ...

[@Chironex_Fleckeri]

Making an aircraft that offers your pilots a simple but effective edge over the enemy makes your pilots more effective, but also the Americans had built their own corps of pilots that Japan would've loved to have in 1941. The Americans have never stopped their pursuit of air dominance and how to achieve it. America has the F-35, as do member states of the program. The advantages aren't quantifiable in technical terms, do we forget that the aircraft is supremely capable and facing huge numbers of them would be like facing the Hellcat. Gaining 500hp was absolutely monstrous. I bet the engine designers would be fascinated by modern aircraft designs. You can see the effects the oil industry and superior refinery technologies of the US allowed engineers a lot to work with. I would still salute any pilot who flew a 2200hp beast. That is a lot of power for any pilot to manage. I bet it would take a lot of time to fly one in a realistic mock dogfight. The planes built 80+ years ago are still extremely capable aircraft. There are many designs from the 40s and 50s that are still essentially the basis for general aviation's staple aircraft.

[@noidreculse8906]

That’s why it’s called a ZERO

[@TheDavidlloydjones]

The Smithsonian Air Museum on the Mall in DC have a Zero and a Hellcat mounted next to each other, in a false "sky" diaganolly as I remember it, years ago. The contrast is astonishing. The Zero is a thing of beauty, a delicate little Bambi of a plane, the Hellcat a machine of fury, a great muscular buffalo by comparison. You don't want to be a guy driving the little Bambi.

[@ryanjonathanmartin3933]

The Zero is a tin can with its best qualities a byproduct of its glaring flaws. The Hellcat is a plane introduced in late 1942, with technology from 1940.

[@kenchen704]

Thatch Weave is OP

[@vincentwinkleblech3614]

Let's be somewhat fair about the 13-1 kill ratio. The Hellcat was introduced after Japan had lost a decent amount of it's best pilots and could not make replacements anywhere near the caliber they had prior to 1943. Also remember that American Pilots were getting better and better as the war progressed. We can see a similarity with American Tanks and it's crews, as the Germans were losing top crews to attrition, American crews were getting experience and the tanks were improving( Gun Upgrades were huge deal). It was not as if Yamamoto was wrong, he knew they needed to sue for peace with the Americans QUICKLY or they would no doubt lose. Yamamoto did not live long enough to see just how correct he was.

[@MsZeeZed]

There’s an alternate theory that Mitsubishi’s aircraft design office was so overloaded with Imperial Navy requests to update the A6M that it never had enough time to get its long-term replacement off the drawing board between 1943-45. Its likely that the collapsing wartime economy of Imperial Japan had many similar stories of developments that couldn’t go forward quickly enough, while US production was in overdrive.

[@carloshenriquezimmer7543]

Not forgeting too that Japanese Navy and Army were actively sabotaging each other's weapons development during the whole war, while USA's forces were cooperating. The Corsair was developed for the Army, but the Navy got it, because it served them better, and the Army already had a equivalent airplane. I heard that some of the "improved" Zeros were diferent between Japanese Army and Navy, because they had designed some features that were detrimental to the other branch, and inconsequential to whoever ordered it, just to hold production for themselves. There are plenty of stories like that from the period.

[@adamlury6443]

Thanks for talking about this amazing aircraft. Its often outshined by the corsair or p47 but the f6f was the aircraft that nearly single handedly turn the tide of air power in the pacific. It was great at nearly everything its armement was fantastic being able to carry tiny tim rockets meant it was also effective as an anti ship aircraft. This was the aircraft that actually got me into the history of the pacific war. I hope one day i can see one irl

[@CMDRFandragon]

Lol, back when I used to play the flight sim IL2 1946, I avoided the F6F because I flew the F4F and hated it. I didnt know about the planes actual performance and improvements over the Wildcat so just wrote it off as a fatter F4F. When I later did fly it in the game, it was actually pretty amazing lol.

[@captainobvious9233]

There is one on display in the American Heritage Museum in Hudson Massachusetts, along with several other aircraft. You have to see it in person to appreciate what a beast the Hellcat is. It's huge.

[@contrapasta2454]

Seeing a double wasp engine at the Air and Space Museum was like seeing one of the pyramids at Giza. I don't understand how humans built such a thing less than 40 years after the Wright Brothers and without CAD or CNC.

[@Tekisasubakani]

War often pushes technological advancement. That would be fine, except for, you know, the absolute horror and destruction of it all.

[@smittywjmj]

R-2800s, and most American radial engines at the time, are very basic motors even by the standards of other aircraft engines at the time. Two overhead valves per cylinder, pushrods, simple wedge heads. It's a far cry from the overhead-cam four-valve penta-heads that were being used in V engines like the Allison and Merlin. This is also part of what made them fairly rugged and easy to maintain. If you had to do a valve job on an R-2800, two valves across 18 cylinders means 36 total valves. On a V12, four valves per cylinder means a whopping 48 valves to handle. Granted, aircraft engines were still ahead of automobile motors of the time, which were mostly still flatheads and F-heads, and aircraft engines were typically dual-ignition with separate magnetos. But since these were performance motors and substantially larger, it was more valuable to take these extra steps and costs where it wouldn't be necessary for a truck.

[@ryanjonathanmartin3933]

@smittywjmj Yes, it was a simple engine in many respects, but in others it was FAR ahead of its time. For example, the Double Wasp (and its predecessor, the R-1830 Twin Wasp) came with an intercooler along with a two-stage supercharger or a turbocharger in the P-47. This gave it a substantial advantage at high altitudes because it could run very high boost pressures without overheating. The Merlin did not get an intercooler until quite late in the war. The Germans and Japanese barely ever used an intercooler in their engine designs.

[@williamglaser6577]

Great pair of videos, thanks, looking forward to part 2 .

[@pimpompoom93726]

The Mitsubishi 'Zero' was very nimble and agile, but it was lightened to the point of sacrificing other attributes-like durability, dive speed and armament. Further, it had limited development potential-the 'Zero' of 1945 wasn't much superior to the 'Zero' of 1941. When Mitsubishi tried to arm it with heavier guns, the performance wen't down due to limited power. The Kawanishi 'Shiden' and the Nakajima Ki-84 'Frank" were superior to the 'Zero', but they came along too late and couldn't be produced in large enough numbers to make the difference. Excellent video, I have subscribed.

[@brokenbridge6316]

I saw a documentary on the History Channel about the Hellcat and loved it.

[@richardknouse618]

Another factor was the development of a bullet that would explode on impact with canvas. An armor piercing round would pass through canvas leaving just a small hole. The new bullet would explode and rip off the entire wing of the zero. My father was a smokeless gunpowder specialist for duPont and helped develop this round.

[@virt1one]

And the lack of self-sealing fuel tanks pretty much guaranteed a fire with just a few hits to the wing. So then it only really took one solid hit to down a zero.

[@kenneth9874]

When flown properly and to their strengths F4's and P40's were more than capable of dealing with zeros

[@poormanselectronicsbench2021]

I believe the early tactic against a Zero was, just take it "head on" as the Zero was not as sturdy a plane, and didn't have self sealing tanks or pilot protection, and the larger engines on the US fighters would take more fire abuse.

[@goldmastersimulations]

British Kitthyhawks could run their Allison engines at 70” Hg continuously for 3 minutes in the desert and take on Bf 109s just fine in North Africa.

[@ryanjonathanmartin3933]

Exactly. The Zero is pure vapourware at this point. So so overrated.

[@ryanjonathanmartin3933]

@@goldmastersimulations Right. I use the P-40E in War Thunder and I had no problem outmaneuvering Bf 109Es and Fs. Just don't try to fight the Messerschmitts at high altitudes, and all's well.

[@ericmarsha2103]

Nice work man! I'll definitely be checking out some more of your videos

[@mrlodwick]

Grumman rocked, bless all the people in this company.

[@Victor-lr2xr]

My father was an early warning radar technician on Leyte. His unit was on the NE coast to pick up the Japanese planes coming out of Formosa. The difficulty is that his unit was behind Japanese lines. The USA had many units who integrated to crush the Japanese.

[@Bullet-Tooth-Tony-]

The Hellcat simply out powered and outgunned the Zero's which were as fragile as a butterfly with no self-sealing fuel tanks.

[@iexist.imnotjoking5700]

Not true. The zero wasn't fragile, that has already been debunked (I think that was Richard Dunn in his book "Exploding Fuel tanks"). They didn't have self sealing fuel tanks, but they had CO2 fire extinguishers. Still placing the blame on the plane here is so ridiculous. The plane was 80kph slower, but manoeuvred better, climbed better, had about the same acceleration, if not better, also had armour at this stage, had a Never Exceed Speed close to that of the F6F, and it packed two 20mm cannons, another rifle caliber gun which didn't do much as well as a decent 13.2mm Hotchkiss machine gun in the cowling. You know what it didn't have? Competent pilots. The late A6M5b was at least on par with the Hellcat, but that matters Zero if your pilots don't know how to fly anymore. Take Guy's like Tetsuzo Iwamoto. He still shot down many allied planes like the Corsair for example in the oh-so-obsolete Zero.

[@XMysticHerox]

@@iexist.imnotjoking5700 Seeing as the author has absolutely no grounding in history and this is just some random pop science book I'd take it with a big grain of salt. Anyone can write a book. If anything telling me your information comes from a pop science history book makes me trust it less. As for the fire extinguishers. Yes they had them. But 1. only about half did and 2. those are far inferior to self sealing tanks and 3. it also had significantly less armour. You'll note modern jet fighters still use self sealing tanks (and fuel lines) but not fire extinguishers. It's also a simple fact that the wild cat could take more punishment before going down. We don't need to look at some specific part of the plane when the primary sources overwhelmingly agree on it. The zeros fragility was in fact a delibate choise in it's design to maximize agility which worked well early in the war. So even the designers disagree with you. The hellcat was the complete opposite. It's fuel tanks were both self sealing and well armoured. As was the cockpit. Yet was still agile enough to keep up. Of course it was not just the different planes. Yes the Japanese pilots were largely green and rushed through training. Yes the American pilots were significantly more experienced. Both were factors in this extremely one sided engagement.

[@iexist.imnotjoking5700]

@@XMysticHerox @MysticHero I found no source that only half of the planes had the Fire extinguishers. They only had them from the A6M5a onwards, if that's what you mean. Yes, they don't measure up to a self sealing fuel tank. But it is false to claim that their fuel tanks were unprotected. I've never heard that thinner skin thickness was a deliberate choice by the designers. It also makes no sense given that the plane had to withstand incredible G forces in it's tight turns. And the armour plates were almost the same thing. I don't have the details her now, but the protection for the pilot was very similar. No, the F6F was not agile enough to keep up. About Richard L Dunn, on his website it says: "Richard L. Dunn is an independent consultant and former Senior Fellow at the University of Maryland. He conducts research in national security operations and provides advice primarily in the analysis of laws, policies, and practices that impact the effective implementation of technology in the public and private sectors. His research includes a variety of acquisition issues ranging from private-public partnerships to "contractors on the battlefield." He is a member of the editorial advisory board of the Government Contractor magazine. Mr. Dunn retired from Government after serving as the General Counsel of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Previously he was with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, engaged in the private practice of law, and served on active duty as a Judge Advocate in the U.S.A.F. His awards include the Presidential rank of Meritorious Executive and The Secretary of Defense Meritorious Civilian Service Award. Mr. Dunn received a B.A. degree (cum laude), University of New Hampshire; J.D. University of Maryland; and, LL.M. (Highest Honors), George Washington University. Mr. Dunn has published an award winning law review article (Keeping Secrets in the Campus Lab: Law, Values and Rules of Engagement for Industry-University R&D Partnerships 39 Am. Bus. L.J. 182 [2002]) and also has been published in a referred journal of military history (Reconsidering the Attack on HMAS Australia, 2 The Journal of Australian Naval History 48 [2005]). His legal articles have appeared in the Air Force Law Review, the Government Contractor, Aerospace America and other publications. Many of his military history articles are available on the internet at websites such as j-aircraft and warbirdforum Recently Mr. Dunn has been an invited speaker at the Naval Postgraduate School's Annual Acquisition Research Symposium (2005-2009) and contributed to a National Academy of Science research study on network science, technology and experimentation (2007) and a number of Defense Science Board reports (2008-2011)."

[@BoxStudioExecutive]

As I recall the Zero (at least the naval version) had minimal to no armor in order to increase the plane's range. Doesn't matter if your pilots are better when they don't stay alive.

[@XMysticHerox]

@@iexist.imnotjoking5700 " I found no source that only half of the planes had the Fire extinguishers. They only had them from the A6M5a onwards, if that's what you mean." Yes which means about half the planes had them. Slightly less. Model number 4274 to be specific. As there were about 10000 zeroes built thats almost half. Of course thats by 1945. Only roughly 6 thousands zeroes had been built by the time of this battle. It's hard to say how many of which model were without more effort I wish to put into a youtube comment but roughly half of it is accurate. "Yes, they don't measure up to a self sealing fuel tank. But it is false to claim that their fuel tanks were unprotected." Noone said they were unprotected. Literally noone. But they were barely protected. Practically unarmoured and only impotent fire extinguishers. The reality was that just about any hit to a fuel tank would destroy a zero while the same was not the case for the Hellcat. Which lines up with the reports and opinions at the time. "I've never heard that thinner skin thickness was a deliberate choice by the designers. It also makes no sense given that the plane had to withstand incredible G forces in it's tight turns. And the armour plates were almost the same thing. I don't have the details her now, but the protection for the pilot was very similar. " The aircraft maximized agility. For this purpose they decdided to have very little armour and use lighter material to offset this to some degree. This was fine in the early war but the Hellcat massively outclassed it in armour as well as basically everything else. Thee zero did not just have little armour. It had literally none in most of the aircraft including the engine, cockpit and fuel tanks. The cockpit also lacked bullet proof glass while the Hellcat notably included it(one of the first). The zero was basically as light as it could be. Just compare the weight with other contemporary fighters and you'll see. "No, the F6F was not agile enough to keep up. " It absolutely could. It had a much more powerful engine. The zero lacked hydraulic boosting for it's control surfaces so was very difficult to maneuver at higher speeds. It's a credit to the zero it could keep up despite the Hellcat and others simply having more advanced technology but thats just it. It could just about keep up. And thats in the hands of skilled pilots which japan was quickly running out of. As for Dunn yes I read that. Thats why I said he has no grounding in history. Did you actually read what you copy and pasted? The only bit related to the field is "The Journal of Australian Naval History". But this supposed "referred journal" does not appear on the web of science master list or in other words is either illegitimate or completely irrelevant. In other words this is a legal expert trying hard to pretend to be some sort of historian without actually being one. With his qualifications he is essentially no more qualified to speak on this topic than you or me. So no "I read it in this guys book" is not something I find convincing. Not in a world where ancient aliens nonsense is among the best sellers of historical pop science.

[@bigsarge2085]

Excellent as always!

[@RANDALLBRIGGS]

The combination of narrative and imagery here implies that the decision to replace the R-2600 in the XF6F-1 with the R-2800 was made after the Zero that crash-landed on Akutan Island in the Aleutians, or even that early Hellcats, with R-2600 engines, did not fare well against the Zero. Neither of these implications is true. The Akutan Zero was discovered on 10 July 1942, recovered on 15 July, then repaired and finally flown on 20 September. But the decision to upgrade the Hellcat's engine to the R-2800 had been made on 26 April.

[@tracywhite859]

There's a lot of mischaracterizations or misunderstandings here. It's also implied that the Hellcat arrived in January of 1943 whereas they did not actually see combat until ten months later. The number of pilots turned out between Japan and the US is acknowledged but no mention of the work pilots of the earlier aircraft such as F4F Wildcat, P-40, and even F4U Corsair did in grinding away at Japan's experienced pilot core. It's almost as if the Hellcat existed in a vacuum according to this video.

[@derangedhermit2879]

The Wildcats were amazing, yet personally what is all the more impressive was in the initial defensive phase when things were looking bleak in the Pacific, soon after Pearl Harbor and Coral sea, among all the early WW2 close to obsolete outclassed US planes that were sent out against the Japanese Zero’s that were engaged in the fateful carrier battle at Midway, that it wasn’t any of the usual suspects like Brewster Buffalo’s, the Vought Vindicators the F4F Wildcat fighter planes, the torpedo bombers, or the b-17 Flying Fortress or b-26 Marauders that played out and had thier mostly ineffectual roles in the battle, locating spotting and ultimately scoring the lucky decisive carrier strikes in the chaotic legendary naval Battle of Midway, the Japanese thought they’d sunk the carrier Yorktown several times all to have it keep reappearing in the fight. The carrier Enterprise made a name for itself as The Hornets fighter groups deadly insubordinate deadly flights off to nowhere ran out of fuel, ditched at sea & got consumed by sharks? As it all came down to the Catalina long range flying boat and Curtiss Seagull scout floatplane, and most of the glory went to the oddball high altitude slow heavily armored specialized dive bomber built to withstand heavy fire and extreme G forces, the soon to be obsolete Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bombers that suddenly came screeching down through the fog of war from high up at the critical moment and laid the lucky bomb strikes on the 4 sunken Japanese aircraft carriers caught by surprise after attacking the island of Midway then mostly shooting down all manner of planes and stifling waves of feeble U.S. attacks, in a indescribable turning of the tides in the Pacific theater…the Wildcat did its thing in the Turkey Shoot, but the Dauntless Dive Bomber is by far my favorite WW2 plane…8)

[@Living_Target]

Hey op room, we hear a lot about the wildcat and hellcat (even the Corsair) vs the Zero, but I'm curious how it stacked up vs other armies. Do you have any vids about Zero operations in Burma vs the spitfire or other Commonwealth planes? Or anything about the later USAAF ops in China with the late war heavier air force fighters? The content in these theaters is sorely lacking, and people make wild claims about the Zero without considering a lot of the allied air fleet so I'd like to try and learn more.

[@Doc_Paradox]

While the spitfire held its own better than the early US planes the zero was still superior to the spitfire. Remember the early spitfires suffered from negative G maneuvers due to it having a carbureted engine. While the zero also used a carburator they employed an injection tank that would keep the carburetor running long enough to perform negative maneuvers for a short period. Spitfires would later adapt a similar technology. It also goes without saying Japanese pilots had way more experience up to this point having been in constant conflict with China the preceding years.

[@barryervin8536]

Many, if not most, of the "Zeros" met in combat in the China/Burma/India theater were actually very similar looking Ki-43 Oscars, which were Army fighters and often mistakenly identified as Zeros. Allied pilots tended to call every Japanese fighter a Zero. Zeros were Naval fighters and usually (not always) operated from carriers at sea.

[@ryanjonathanmartin3933]

@@Doc_Paradox The Mk V is probably the worst Spitfire relative to the competition. Once the Mk IXs could be mass-transported to the RAAF the Zero's reign was over. By then RAF strategists had also started using their brain like the Americans and avoiding turn-and-burn dogfights with the Zero.

[@davidcaprio8919]

I loved the photo of the angled deck Essex😂

[@Kevin-mx1vi]

You might also have mentioned that the Americans had learned not to try to dogfight with the more manoeuvrable Japanese aircraft as they had done in the early days of the war, but instead to use their speed to swoop on them, fire off a burst or two, then use the energy gained in the dive to climb away and come around again. "Shoot and scoot" tactics which avoided giving the Japanese targets to shoot back at.

[@kremepye3613]

He did at 10:56

[@neonwhitea.1548]

He definitely did

[@Kevin-mx1vi]

@@neonwhitea.1548 He merely mentioned a change of tactics and wasn't specific.

[@neonwhitea.1548]

@@Kevin-mx1vi true he wasn’t specific but it was in there