Talk:F4F-4/@comment-174.111.200.191-20161120024313/@comment-174.111.200.191-20161120060618

"In the end, my underlining point is that if you take a A6M and a Wildcat, both with pilots of equal skill at the same altitude that the A6M would win in the fight."

This is not an operative question in warfare and reveals a juvenile perspective on the topic. It's like an episode of greatest warrior or those perennial questions about whether Iowa would win against Yamato. Which is to say, it's completely moot.

What matters is logistics. A squadron of Wildcats of average skill with mature tactics was at least equal to a squadron of Zeroes of average skill with mature tactics. If the Wildcats are on defense and under local FDO control, they have an acute advantage. On offense they have a disadvantage. These attributes are as innate as the statistics of a warrior in an rpg versus a rogue.

And it is easier to cultivate 'average skill' in a Wildcat squadron because the weapon is fundamentally easier to use.

"My point here was that if Japan had not lost these aces at Midway"

Japan did not lose that many skilled aviators at Midway. Even though 1cardiv and 2cardiv were obliterated, most of the pilots were fished out of the water after ditching. Santa Cruz was more devastating on that point.

Even after Santa Cruz many of the IJN's greatest aces were still in combat with the largely faceless wildcat squadrons operating out of Henderson. They had an edge but never really converted it into total superiority. They were still better than the people they were fighting, in supposedly inferior planes, but they never were able to completely destroy them.

And the reason is because the Zero was not the world-beater it is often portrayed as. It was simply just another aircraft, the product of a different set of compromises, and the Wildcat was as often its equal as it was its inferior, and as often its superior, depending on circumstances.