I believe the 75mph speed differential would be more of an issue than toughness. The issue isn't in actually shooting them down, but rather in catching them, when we have only about 25mph on them at their attack altitude, and the A6M isn't really known for its low drag airframe and high power engine allowing it to maintain speeds in excess of Vmax for any period of time.
True, but here are the various ways things went in the Coral Sea scenarios. For torpedo bombers going the whole way on the deck, Zeros had no problem catching them, as the Zeros were not flying around on the deck. For torpedo bombers going in at higher alts, the Zeros didn't seem to have too much trouble either for two reasons. One is that the Zero has better speed advantage at medium alts (75 mph or so). The other is that Zeros still are generally flying around higher than torpedo bombers. TBM's that go in high generally are around 12-15k, but Zeros were still often up at 20-25k.
For the gun, lets be honest, it was a single .30 caliber machine gun mounted in an aircraft that was still rather under powered, and none too great in a fight.
That's a reasonable thought, but many is the time I *desperately* wanted even a single 30 cal forward firing on my B5N. It's weak, but there is a world of difference between no gun at all and a single 30 cal. With no gun at all, no one has any care at all of you being on his 6. Even with one 30 cal pinging them, they definitely don't ignore it and move. Also, it is much, much more satisfying for the torpedo bomber pilot to have at least one forward gun.
As for the immersion, I believe Krusty made us a Ki-45 skin for the 110C for the Road to Rangoon setup. Given that the TBD and TBM aren't identical twins either, I would think a change in skin would be perfectly sufficient to alleviate any problems.
That's why I referred to this situation earlier: "and would have Japanese skin in the scenarios (because of how skins are implemented on the servers)". The problem is that you can't put skins into a scenario without them being built into the terrain, and that only happens in the rare case that (1) a terrain is being rebuilt at least a couple of months in advance and (2) someone has done a suitable skin. The odds of it are like the alignment of planets. Getting a skin in for a scenario has happened a couple of times in 10 years. Builds of terrains involve the terrain team putting in a bunch of work, and it has to then be run through checks and cleared by HTC.
Given the Deck speed of the TBD was less than 200mph, the A6M's can have significant rates of closure on them at their attack altitude, even just at Vmax. However, we have to spend longer periods of time closing on the TBM's, making the CAP's job easier.
The attack speed for all torpedo bombers (regardless of Vmax) is about 200 mph. Attackers have never had a problem getting on my torpedo bomber once I'm on the deck -- and that's whether I'm flying a TBM, B5N, Ju 88, or Ki 67 (I've flown them all as torpedo bombers in scenarios).
And to be clear, its not that I think the TBM CAN'T be balanced, just that the B5N2 would require less balancing, as well as more closely emulating the TBD.
It hasn't required any balancing, though. Coral Sea has equal numbers on each side, and each side has about 1/3 fighters, 1/3 dive bombers, and 1/3 torpedo bombers. All we do is put B5N's in the for the IJN and TBD's in for the USN.
Heres hoping they pull a fast one like they did with the P-47M then.
I hear you. My preference list is:
Yak-1 (For Eastern Front mid-war, Yak-1 was very important)
B6N (Most-produced Japanese torpedo bomber, taking over for the early-war B5N)
D4Y (Most-produced Japanese dive bomber, taking over for early-war D3A)
Pe-2 (Most-produced Soviet attack plane other than Il-2, for Eastern Front)
TBD (Important for Battle of Coral Sea and Midway)
Beaufighter (Multi-role, would add a lot of flavor to events)
