Originally posted by Lusche
There is no such thing as "easy kills" in a zero - far too many disadvantages.
True enough, I can easily name a few them...
1. The guns trajectory and over-all killing power is bad.
2. It's slow, very slow, i've been out run by bombers in it.
3. It can't go fast, 400 is the max untill your essentially completely unmovable in it, even 350 is about the max you want to be going.
4. It has about 0% armor, from pilot armor to self sealing tanks it has neither, although I've taken pleanty of hits from .50 Cals and 7mm's all it takes is 1-2 bullets through one of the tanks to finish it.
But then again, if used properly there is pleanty of ways to over-come the short comings except against some of the better pilots who always manage anyways.
1. Get close, 400 or closer for the cowlings and 200 or closer for the 20mm's
2. Get them slow, theres pleanty of info on Netaces and the Hitech training site on how to do it.
3. See #2
4. It turns better then anything else in the game, keep it moveing to keep there gun solution off you.
So is it an easy plane to fly? Yes and no.
Although newer pilots may be able to pick it up easily because its turning rate allows for the easy 6 o'clock shots, turning alone will never let a Zero live long because it will simply be BnZ'ed untill a fuel tank is hit or it breaks apart completely.
The Zero require a large sense of SA to be able to fly it properly. As well as well managed tactics to allow them to be able to kill the alt-monkeys E state. It also requires a a fair skill of aiming (just like any other plane) and is harder to aim then other planes due to the guns trajectory. There are pleanty of other factors to put into play here but writting it all would take to long and yous all can think for yourselves. All in all the Zero is no easier to fly then a P-38, P-51, Spit, Corsair, Hellcat or any other plane, but rather requires a different set of tactics to allow survivability.
