Hi Squire,
>The Spitfire and the Zero never really had a long, hard fought campaign against each other, Australia was a series of limited raids in 1943 only, which is the only place the two ac met.
I could say the Battle of Britain was a series of limited raids in 1940 :-) Obviously, it was bigger than the Australian campaign, but it certainly was a rather short (yet intense) battle.
>As far as proper tactics, all the Allied flyers adopted what worked for them eventually, P-40, P-39, Spitfire, F4F, F6F, whatever. Seeing friends die is a great learning tool I would think. That was true for both sides, from 1939-45. None of them were stupid, they knew the limits of their ac.
Well, they didn't know the limits of the enemy aircraft though. It took quite a while before the weaknesses of the A6M were finally realized, so "eventually" is the keyword here.
I agree that the RAF would have adapted to the threat, and I do actually believe that the A6M would have fared worse than the Me 109, but I'm certain the RAF would have taken heavy losses early on, and there's no way of telling just how quickly they would have adapted.
>It wasnt like it was some "new" concept...SE5a pilots fought Fokker Dr1s in 1917.
Long-serving RAF experts like Sholto Douglas certainly knew about that, but I'd say the Camel school of thinking was just as influential as the SE5a school of thinking, and I'm not sure the WW2 pilots were trained according to any of them as the RAF expected the fighters to defend their home country by intercepting unescorted bombers.
Bringing the individual combat pilots up to Sholto Douglas' level of tactical expertise would have taken some time, especially if it were attempted during the Battle.
But with regard to Sakai's comment: The A6M was not the aircraft that would have won the Battle of Britain because endurance wasn't the factor that lost it. It were radar and Ultra that were decisive. Endurance could have helped the Luftwaffe to get a more favourable exchange ratio, and fitting drop tanks to the Me 109 would have done them better than equipping their combat squadron with the A6M in my opinion. However, the final outcome would have been just the same.
Regards,
Henning (HoHun)