Talk:F4F-4/@comment-129.21.139.116-20161202003200/@comment-27069434-20161203200937

Well, the tricky part here is that th plane stats are...tied to those of their ships, which differ somewhat from how it is in real life.

You see, USN planes were more of a straigh line fliers, a bit less maneuverable, a bit better protected (self-sealing tanks, partial cocpit armoring and etc), their armaments were more of the "steady does it" kind, what with 12.7mm MGs being able to put out a more or less constant torrent of API-bullets, though wing-mounts made it a bit tricky to tune the guns properly and use that in a boom-zoom, which was preferable against IJN planes.

A6Ms were more agile, if not so well-sprinting, though, again, this depends on the model. Zero was not usually well-protected against enemy fire. Their nose-mounted MGs would be nice, if only not 7,7mm cal.(since most japanese 12,7mm MGs - or cannons, as they were called due to a political shenanigans between the autocannon and MG lobbyists - were short-barreled and used ineffectifve cartrige scheme with rarher fat bullet and gaunt case with pityful amount of propellant). The good part about armament was 2 20mm cannons - type 99 mod1, which was short-barrelled and with "malnourished" cartrige, which made the projectile suffer from steep firing arc, while the mod2 was longer-barreled, slower firing and was fed with normal bottle-shape rounds with enough propellant in them for a good trajectory. Again, the wing-mounted position makes optimising the salvoes harder, and only 100 rounds per cannon was not that much, and after exhausting them the pilot would have to resort to measly 7.7mm peashooters..

TL;RD F4F-4 and A6M2 are more or less equal in a real combat, with mostly opposite strengths and weaknesses, the latter being overcome by how they were deployed and what tactics employed.