Luftwaffe Zeros?

Thank you. I'd been biting my tongue over this one. The BoB was lost by the Germans when their fighter squadrons were outfought. During the critical August/September battles that was largely over SE England. The longer range bomber raids into the midlands were as much in reaction to losing this battle as for any practical objective.

 

Why go that far?
If the germans had planned in advance for BoB they could have had ALL their Me109s retrofitted with drop tanks ( not only an insignificant percentage as actually was the case)
That would have increased their range from 600 km to 1300 km!
Talk about free hunting Messerchmitts all over england..

 

This sort of says it all, the Germans didn't need the Zero, they needed a sterategic planner that wouldn't put his pride before common sense when bombs fell on Berlin.

Changing tactics cost the Germans the Battle of Britain, the Germans all but ended the RAF, which would have given air supperiority for an invasion.

Although with the range of the Zero, they could have stayed with the bombers and fought it out during the whole mission. Interesting concept for sure.

 

A few points here...
1. The USN and it's F4F's were the only airforce to match the IJN and it's Zero's on anything like 1-1 ratio. This is according to Lundstrom's "First team".

2. I wouldn't say a Spitfire I,'109E or Hurricane were outright superior to a F4F-3 in speed,climb or manuverability. Some will say a F4F-3 didn't have armor or self-sealing tanks however according to loadouts and figures furnished by Francis Dean's "America's 100,000" even with those assets it's performance is pretty comparable. A F4F-3 was quite capable of a max speed of 335-340 MPH and climb rate of 3300 FPM taking around 7 minutes to get to 20,000'. Eric Brown in "Wings of the Navy" compared one of the first F4F-3's (which I guess didn't have armor/sealed tanks) and commented it's only shortcoming versus Spitfires & Hurricanes was that it's dive speed compared to those two(which is what lead me to believe it was the version without armor/protected tanks).

3. As far as Zero's versus Hurricanes & Spitfires well the F4F had it's good days & bad days versus Zero's while the Hurricane had nothing but bad days. In fact the Hurricane was on the loosing side versus the Ki-43's and even the older Ki-27's while the F4F had a very high kill-loss ratio versus both of those IJAAF types. The Spitfire V's at Darwin had superior performance to the Spitfire I's of the BoB but even at that 32 Spitfire V's were lost in air to air combat to just 3 Zero's and 1 Oscar. It seems to that even when the RAAF changed it's tatics the Zero's still had the upper hand. Of course the RAAF opponents in those battles ,the 202 nd. Kentai, were a very,very elite/good fighter unit.

All in all I see no reason why the IJN & it's Zero's couldn't give a good account of themselves in the ETO though replacing pilots would be a big bug a boo . However here we're talking about the Luftwaffe just using Zero's here but the above info seems to show that in the hands of the Luftwaffe the Zero could match the RAF but for one thing ,the Zero wasn't ready yet.

 

One thing is that the RAF could withdraw it's squadrons farther to the North to preserve them in case of invasion.

 

The Zero had the range to fight anywhere in the UK, and return to base.

 

I still cannot buy it "Gromit801", where are the A6Ms going to come from in 1940? In August, 1940, Japan sent 15 pre-production A6M1 Model 11s for operational trials in China. That said, the "Zero" series production of the A6M2 didn't begin until July 31, 1940, with the first production models rolling off the line near the end of the year.

As for the BoB, since only 15 Zeros were in actual existence by the time of BoB, I hardly think they would have made a difference (and they were 20 mph slower than a Spitfire Mk.I). This was without self-sealing fuel tanks, and no pilot armor. The Luftwaffe wouldn’t produce nor use fighters without either, and add those weights and both speed and range fall off.

It was also discovered that the early A6M2 model of the Zero could not maintain a steep dive, and it lost maneuverability at speeds over 260 mph (418 km/h). It was also rather anemic at altitudes above 15,000 feet (4600m). And its engine required an overhaul every 150 hours of flight time.

Couple those flaws, its puny production numbers in the time period, high altitude inabilty, fragility, and add in that the Zero’s large propeller coupled with its same direction turning radial engine generated high torque, so that its roll rate was much slower to the right than the left.

All allied pilots flying inline engine planes were instructed that they could shake a Zero off their tail with a split-S to the right. The weaponry on the A6M was far better on paper than in reality. Sakai Saburo, the second highest scoring Japanese ace to survive the war stated:

Our 20mm cannons were big, heavy and slow firing. It was extremely hard to hit a moving target. Shooting down an enemy aircraft was like hitting a dragonfly with a rifle! It was never easy to score ... our opponents were tough.

The 0.303 machine guns in the engine cowling were often ineffective against sturdy Allied aircraft with their self-sealing tanks, and armor. Those existing Zeros would be of no consequence in the time-frame; BoB. Unless your "what-if" alters not only production numbers and all the other flaws out of the A6M?

 

Again, it's WHAT IF. WHAT IF the Japanese had enough A6M's to share? That's pretty much the basis of this particular What If. The Luftwaffe would only have them if the Japanese had enough to go around.

Reality vs What If. For the sake of What If, the Luftwaffe has Zeros.

All of this was discovered months after the Allies encountered the Zero in the Pacific, after having ignored Chennault's warnings. How many Allied fighters were blown out of the sky between Dec 1941, and say June 1942?

See above.

See above. All of these flaw were not known until high loses were sustained by the Allies.

How long would it have taken the RAF, right after the losses over France, to figure out the Zero's weaknesses, and would there have been enough of an RAF left to exploit them? Since the Zero would have been able to escort Luftwaffe bombers anywhere in the UK. The RAF would not have had the luxury of holding any of their strength in the north (out of range of the Me-109's).

 

Unless your 'what if' gives the luftwaffe a far greater number of pilots and aircraft to fight the battle it makes no difference. The Luftwaffe failed to defeat Fighter Command in South East England when the range of their Bf 109's wasn't a problem, so exposing them to an even greater number of British fighters isn't going to help.

 

If you add several hundred Zeros, and pilots, to the Luftwaffe force that actually existed, then it might well tip the battle in their favour. But then again, so would several hundred more 109s and pilots.

The Luftwaffe didn't need more range for the BoB. They needed more fighters, or to win a higher proportion of combats. Simple as that.

As to drop tanks, they wouldn't help much. For a start the RAF's tactics of intercepting early with small numbers of planes, then feeding more planes in as the battle continued, would negate drop tanks. Caldwell notes that in the early battles over Kent the fighting sometimes went on for an hour. That's 20 - 30 miles from the Luftwaffe fighter fields, and they would have dropped their tanks as soon as combat started.

The USAAF in their range planning allowed for only 20 minutes combat, not an hour or more.

And range wasn't going to help the Luftwaffe. The Germans deployed almost their entire fighter force against 11 Group. Range would allow them to also attack 10 and 12 Groups, but the idea is to concentrate your forces in battle, not disperse them. Luftwaffe attacks on 10 and 12 Groups would reduce the pressure on 11 Group whilst increasing pressure on the Luftwaffe (longer flights, attacks further inland, 10 and 12 would have a far easier time intercepting).

More range is a disadvantage for the Luftwaffe.

It's also worth pointing out that the Luftwaffe lost the BoB in August over Kent, mostly less than 50 miles from their bases. German aces like to complain of their short combat time over London in September, but the battle was way past the point of no return for the Germans by then.

It was the Luftwaffe that was on the ropes by 7th September, not the RAF, though neither side realised it. The Luftwaffe vastly overestimated their victories and underestimated British production. The RAF slightly overestimated their victories but greatly overestimated Luftwaffe reserves and German production.

 

As a what if, let's start the Battle of Britain with a full compliment of Zeros, all their pilots before being decimated by the British, and they stick to the tactics of eliminating the RAF. There is a very good possibility things would have been different. Would they have won? That is a question we would never know.