A6M2's range as a force multiplier in an ATL Battle of Britain.

Given the range advantage of an A6M2 type aircraft in the Luftwaffe during the BOB:


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Ok, so based upon an earlier thread, that can be found here, let's have a discussion for how to guesstimate actual combat sorties fuel endurance a bit better than the rather limited formula that was in use there, specifically where I tried to give a crude estimation of the effect of a Luftwaffe fighter version of an authentic A6M2 model 11, or something very much like it in an ATL BoB, and what that could have meant.

Here is the part of post #103 from that thread re-posted here to give a starting point for the discussion in this thread, where I want to ask for folks opinions on the 'formula' I used there, and how to make the calculations a fair bit my realistic. Here goes:

And all that to get this:
Hurricane range 600 miles.
Spitfire range 470 miles.
Bf 109 range 528 miles.
He-100D-1 range 628 miles.
A6M2 range 1,929 miles.

And using this information, that we know isn't specific to all the types that we really want to focus upon here, ie the actual types/models of BOB vintage, we are then going to plug them into a demonstrator formula, that makes a very poor attempt to convert these range figures into something that drives home the actual effect of the Zero's range advantage.

Some pictures:
Here are a couple images:
Luftwaffe with 109's as best fighter.
G0pR8YNl.jpg

Luftwaffe with A6M's as best fighter.
iuy7X2fl.jpg

Not sure that these ranges are correct, but they say a picture is worth a 1,000 words...

In the pictures above, I have the Luftwaffe flight/ranges listed from around Brussels to SW of London. Given that model, which is not the only place, nor the closest place, the Luftwaffe can stage from for their raids into the UK, I want folks to understand that this is done for the sake of simplicity, to make the point I have been on about.

The Luftwaffe 109's take off, and use up ~200 miles of their range getting to the combat zone, while the RAF Spitfires and Hurricanes wait, and take off later and await their foes...

We know from OTL that the 109's arrive at the fight with just 5 minutes combat fuel left, when wasting fuel flying as slow as their bombers, but in this argument we are trying to just use fuel time/range as the value (knowing that this isn't perfect, but we are just trying to understand what happened historically in 1942) of merit.

So what that means is, of the 328 miles/range left in the 109's tanks, 200 is needed for the voyage home, while for the FC pilots, let's call this 500 for the Hurricanes and 370 for the Spitfires (climbing to altitude, and moving to intercept, and rtb being assumed to eat up the missing 100 miles) and this means that they have a staying power of fuel reserves aboard of ~372/242 after the 109's have to abandon the bombers and head for home. I was nowhere able to find this information, and was forced to extrapolate for scanty and not oh-so-reliable sources, so don't take this as gospel, but do let it stand in for such until someone that is more motivated/skilled/dedicated comes along and gets us all the REAL numbers, lol.

Now all this so far, to show a very rough guess of typical fuel reserves of the FC aircraft at the point in the historical battle were the FC aircraft are in the clear to smack down some additional German bombers, before they have to land themselves. Actual fuel reserves would vary from plane to plane, and mission to mission, but without better information, and a computer program to help model this stuff, this is the best I can do for the forum community.

So we can see the situation with the Luftwaffe 109's, and now let's plug in those pesky little HE-100D1's, and see how they do.

Luftwaffe air raids that include HE-100-D1's, we get 628 miles minus the same 400 miles travel time, and then have 228 miles/fuel range left over the UK, and so that gives us ~272/142 airborne fuel reserves for the pilots of the 11 groups fighters, after even the HE-100-D1's have to rtb. Better, but not really anywhere near where we are about to be...

And now we come to the A6M2's. Take away the same 400 miles off their 1929 mile range, and we get 1529 miles/fuel range left over, and we finally arrive at the whole point of the exercise. We now take these 1529 miles/fuel range away from the fuel reserves of the airborne Spitfires and Hurricanes of FC, and we get these numbers for the Airborne remaining fuel reserves at the moment the A6M2's must rtb:

Hurricanes 500 - 1529 = -1029 miles/fuel range reserves!
Spitfires 370 - 1529 = -1159 miles/fuel reserves!

And now we see it! Historically, we see the allies suffering 10:1 loss ratios vs the Zero in 1942, but in this notional alternate Battle of Britain, where the Germans and Japanese act in a more rational fashion and actually share information, from years before the war starts, the Germans have a small force of A6M2's within the ranks of the Luftwaffe, and using them effectively bring ruinous losses to 1940 fighter command units during the open phases of the battle.

And additional information. Do we all just assume complacently that OTL's 1942 losses could never happen in 1940? Are all of these losses to be assumed to be the fault of the suburb dogfighting capabilities of the Zero's vs all other fighter types/skill of their pilots? Or do we at last realize, suburb dogfighter that it may be, the real force multiplier is the ability of the Zero to simply run the other fellow out of gas! Maybe dogfighting gets us 2:1, or 3:1, or even 4:1 loss ratios, but the real killer is just the fact that they can outlast the airborne enemy fighters fuel reserves, and since what comes up must come down, if you are in the aircraft that is running out of fuel, and the enemy has been waiting for this moment to press home their attacks, because really, why engage in a pitched battle with an enemy that can still mix it up while his fuel lasts, when you can just as easily wait for them to drop from the sky, or frantically attempt to break contact, only to discover to their horror, that you have planned this moment from the beginning, and ruthlessly press home your advantage.

Folks wanting to be honest, I ask you: "Who basically disregarded the massive range advantage of the A6M2, and thought it irrelevant and of small/no import"?

Looking upthread, there were folks claiming that (maybe) a Luftwaffe with Zero's would kill a few extra FC fighters, or that the Spitfires and Hurricanes couldn't ever find themselves "all but helpless" against the A6M2's, while completely ignoring the loiter times these notional A6M2 like LW fighters would enjoy over SE England, and yet they too had the information before them, they just didn't think things through.

Looking at the above, we see me working with numbers that we know are not specific to the actual types flying during mid-late 1940. This is not done to try to make things seem worse than they were, but rather because I lack the means to buy reference materials with potentially more accurate information, and thus am stuck with the information above.

Now, my specific questions are:
1) Using the total maximum ranges, listed for all the aircraft, as a flight time/airbore time, we know that this isn't accurate, as none of these aircraft are flying a maximized flight time mission profile, but is this model as least fair in that it is applied to all fighters of both sides?

2) If we need to adjust flight times/ranges downward, by how much? Would ½ total range/rlight time be better, or perhaps ¼ or ¾ be better? I cannot get 1/3 to work using the {Special Characters} codes, anyone got that one? Anyway, just what factor should be used to reduce ranges/flight times to more realistic levels.

3) Should alterations be made for defending/attacking aircraft, and what should these be? Defending aircraft will be expending more fuel/faster in their climb to altitude than they will forming up, but what effect should this have compared to the attacker who is expending fuel at a faster rate, but then does get to conserve fuel on the approach and return flights?
 

SwampTiger

Banned
The range issue is spurious. Ability to engage other aircraft will be degraded by low ammunition supply, added weight for armor and self-sealing fuel tankage. This is useful for at most one month before the Brits counter. Then, pilot losses for the Germans will increase.
 
Several things need to be accounted for, before we enter the win/loss calculations. Is it the A6M2 as-is (no steelarmor nor BP glass, no s-s tanks, radios sparsely issued), or the one that might be fovored by LW (has all of the listed stuff)? How many Zeroes LW has? What is the aggregate number of LW forces, especially the fighter force? How do the Zeroes can react on fighters from Group 12 appearing from north?
 
The range issue is spurious. Ability to engage other aircraft will be degraded by low ammunition supply, added weight for armor and self-sealing fuel tankage. This is useful for at most one month before the Brits counter. Then, pilot losses for the Germans will increase.
Thanks for the quick reply. Radio's yes, armor and self-sealing tanks, no. I myself was thinking along the lines of 2 weeks of unrivaled slaughterfesting, and then around two months of the RAF starting to effectively counter, by various means, and simply outbuilding the LW in fighters.

Specifically on the topic of the formula I was using, do you have any thoughts for how to make a better guess? If we cut all aircrafts range/flight time by ½, then what do we see? Also, I didn't make any allowance for Bf109's and Bf110's using drop tanks, which is kinda dumb on my part given that we are positing an alternate Luftwaffe that goes for an all out long range fighter at the cost of most any safety/survivability features, in a gamble to trade higher risks for massively higher RAF losses, for a short time.
 
Welcome to the thread!
Several things need to be accounted for, before we enter the win/loss calculations. Is it the A6M2 as-is (no steelarmor nor BP glass, no s-s tanks, radios sparsely issued), or the one that might be fovored by LW (has all of the listed stuff)? How many Zeroes LW has? What is the aggregate number of LW forces, especially the fighter force? How do the Zeroes can react on fighters from Group 12 appearing from north?
I think the other thread covered most of these points, so just a quick recap...

Only change from OTL A6M2 model 11, is radios. Specifically no armor, no BP glass, no thicker skin. Don't know what {s-s tanks is}, and numbers as per other thread, so 1 A6M2/day, starting Jan 1st, 1940, so somewhere around 180 by June 30th. Rest of Luftwaffe as historical.

Specific mission profile for A6M2 force is low altitude intercept/dogfighting, hunter/killer fighter extermination in SE England, no high altitude combat, no bomber escorting, just pure fighter v fighter combat.
 
Low cannon ammunition will limit its usefulness after the first series of engagements regardless of range and its flimsy construction means damaged planes will not be making it back to France and thus aircrew losses will be horrible.
 
Welcome to the thread!
I think the other thread covered most of these points, so just a quick recap...

Only change from OTL A6M2 model 11, is radios. Specifically no armor, no BP glass, no thicker skin. Don't know what {s-s tanks is}, and numbers as per other thread, so 1 A6M2/day, starting Jan 1st, 1940, so somewhere around 180 by June 30th. Rest of Luftwaffe as historical.

Specific mission profile for A6M2 force is low altitude intercept/dogfighting, hunter/killer fighter extermination in SE England, no high altitude combat, no bomber escorting, just pure fighter v fighter combat.

So what happens if the RAF refuses to engage these fighter sweeps? Joe Paris, a P-40 double ace with the 49th Fighter Group in New Guinea said that he did not feel inferior against the Zero because his superior speed meant he determined whether or not a fight even took place.
 

SwampTiger

Banned
Stop looking at max range. You need to consider combat radius, to target and back with a combat reserve of 30-40%, so 600+ miles or about 960-1000 km. Rabaul to Lungga/Henderson field is 1047 km. Once Fighter Command learns to keep their speed above 240 or so mph, the Zero is doomed.
 
Welcome to the thread!
Low cannon ammunition will limit its usefulness after the first series of engagements regardless of range and its flimsy construction means damaged planes will not be making it back to France and thus aircrew losses will be horrible.
I think folks make a bit too much about the low ammo, as in the idea is to shoot down the entire RAF FC in the very first sortie. Keep in mind, it isn't just shooting down the RAF fighters in aerial combat, but running them out of fuel, and picking them off as they try to land. Yes, an A6M2 aircraft hit over the UK is more likely than a Bf109/Bf110 to fail to rtb, but when that aircraft is a much harder target to engage? There will be a trade off, of course, but I rather suspect that it is going to strongly favor the LW, rather than the RAF.

Do you have any thoughts on the way to better calculate actual combat sortie fuel reserves, using the information provided in the OP? That is all I'm really after in this thread, after all, just a better way of coming up with a model for just how long the various aircraft are going to have gas left in their tanks, by the time the fighter vs fighter combat starts down on the deck.
 
The range issue is spurious. Ability to engage other aircraft will be degraded by low ammunition supply, added weight for armor and self-sealing fuel tankage. This is useful for at most one month before the Brits counter. Then, pilot losses for the Germans will increase.
The early self sealing tanks on the Me-109 was not what they were later, pretty much a semicured coating of natural rubber on the outside of the tank, so could take care of small leaks, but not serious damages, even what is done be rifle class projectiles.
So that gives the Me-109 only slight advantage in the armored seatback over the A6M2, while far worse in climb and turning, not much better at roll rate.

Then we add in that pilot visibility was far better, and huge difference in landing and takeoff behavior, there is real advantages is not wrecking aircraft in accidents, something the Me-109 was noted for.
 
Welcome to the thread!
I think the other thread covered most of these points, so just a quick recap...

Only change from OTL A6M2 model 11, is radios. Specifically no armor, no BP glass, no thicker skin. Don't know what {s-s tanks is}, and numbers as per other thread, so 1 A6M2/day, starting Jan 1st, 1940, so somewhere around 180 by June 30th. Rest of Luftwaffe as historical.

Specific mission profile for A6M2 force is low altitude intercept/dogfighting, hunter/killer fighter extermination in SE England, no high altitude combat, no bomber escorting, just pure fighter v fighter combat.

s-s tanks = self-sealing tanks
180 extra fighters by June 1940 is actually the best thing about this proposal (even though I prefer zero-sum game best) - that about equals the number of Bf 110s at the start of the BoB.
Other things I dislike very much. Trying to fight at low altitude means you've just surrendered the initiative to the enemy, even Boelke 'dictated' back in ww1 that altitude and speed advantage is important. So RAF will simply shallow dive, fire bursts, zoom climb, repeat -> LW loosing not just aircraft, but pilots. Flying low above enemy-held ground makes you a target of AAA. Hunter-killer extermination sounds good, but ignores the thing that it is RAF FC that has clear picture of Zeros whereabouts above Kent, not vice-versa. No high altitude combat = again surrenders initiative to the RAF. BTW, lets not forget that Merlin III delivers up to 1300 HP at lower altitudes.

Low cannon ammunition will limit its usefulness after the first series of engagements regardless of range and its flimsy construction means damaged planes will not be making it back to France and thus aircrew losses will be horrible.

Agreed all the way. Just beacuse LW has some new nifty fighters, it does not mean that it can burn through it's supply of experienced pilots on a whim.
 
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Several things need to be accounted for, before we enter the win/loss calculations. Is it the A6M2 as-is (no steelarmor nor BP glass, no s-s tanks, radios sparsely issued), or the one that might be fovored by LW (has all of the listed stuff)? How many Zeroes LW has? What is the aggregate number of LW forces, especially the fighter force? How do the Zeroes can react on fighters from Group 12 appearing from north?
I don't see the Luftwaffe using exact clones, but would have the more reliable and longer ranged German sets, as well as reflector gunsights. I believe from the other thread, that I put forth a one for one replacement from 109 production, that had four seperate subcontractors at this time, where they would be doing A6M2 in place.
 
So what happens if the RAF refuses to engage these fighter sweeps? Joe Paris, a P-40 double ace with the 49th Fighter Group in New Guinea said that he did not feel inferior against the Zero because his superior speed meant he determined whether or not a fight even took place.
Ignoring Fighter sweeps is not good for Morale, ket alone the actual damage inflicted
 

SwampTiger

Banned
Do you have any thoughts on the way to better calculate actual combat sortie fuel reserves, using the information provided in the OP? That is all I'm really after in this thread, after all, just a better way of coming up with a model for just how long the various aircraft are going to have gas left in their tanks, by the time the fighter vs fighter combat starts down on the deck.

The proper way would be to take specific fuel consumption of the engine for take-off, cruise and combat, and calculate based off fuel capacity. Since I don't have those for the Sakae, you can use the basic noted above, use the total range to devise a miles per gallon rate, then as you cut range add additional minutes of combat/loiter time. The rate of consumption is different for loiter and combat, so you get to try and determine the differing rates of consumption. Good luck!
 
The early self sealing tanks on the Me-109 was not what they were later, pretty much a semicured coating of natural rubber on the outside of the tank, so could take care of small leaks, but not serious damages, even what is done be rifle class projectiles.
So that gives the Me-109 only slight advantage in the armored seatback over the A6M2, while far worse in climb and turning, not much better at roll rate.
...

Bf 109E-3 will need 7 min to reach 6000 m, the A6M2 needs 7min 27sec. It will also roll and dive faster. It is also smaller fighter, meaning it will be harder to spot than Zero, while being a smaller target.
 
So what happens if the RAF refuses to engage these fighter sweeps? Joe Paris, a P-40 double ace with the 49th Fighter Group in New Guinea said that he did not feel inferior against the Zero because his superior speed meant he determined whether or not a fight even took place.
As per the other thread, these are not fighter sweeps in the sense that it is only the A6M2's that are coming calling, but rather the OTL raids are coming in, and the Zero's come in right behind them and once in-country drop down on the deck. So think of OTL, but then, after engaging the reas of the Luftwaffe, the now weary RAF fighters are low on fuel, and attempting to rtb, and then the real fight begins. So, either the RAF keeps its FC aircraft grounded and takes it on the chin, which could never be attempted until after they have learned the hard way not to try to engage the Zero's, or they go up and fight the good fight, and then have to fight the Zero's afterwards.

Stop looking at max range. You need to consider combat radius, to target and back with a combat reserve of 30-40%, so 600+ miles or about 960-1000 km. Rabaul to Lungga/Henderson field is 1047 km.
Fair enough, but I am already using there and back again in my max range formula, sorta, but fuel consumption is going to be higher than max range would allow, so 600 miles X 40% = 240 miles combat radius, but that doesn't really adjust for the air-combat model for an RAF FC aircraft over friendly territory. Hurricanes and Spitfires don't really have to figure on having to fly any great distances to land and refuel, right? So I need to think about this a bit and come up with a better "Best Guess", to make things both more realistic and more accurate.

Once Fighter Command learns to keep their speed above 240 or so mph, the Zero is doomed.
No, first they have to pay the price in lost planes/pilots, and then how to get the airborne fellows safely down on the ground without getting strafed/shot down when critically low on fuel. The whole reason for this thread, is I want to be able to more accurately depict just how desperate the fuel situation, and thus how limited the options open to the airborne FC aircraft are. If the Hurricanes have a total range of 600 miles, and we call this 240 combat miles/fuel time, that's all fine and good, but how much of this is going to be used up by the time they get done with the other German fighters and bombers, up at high altitude, before they then attempt to rtb? If they are as low on fuel as I suspect, especially in the first few days battle, where they don't really know why their losses are so high, they are not going to be trying to flyaway to another fighter groups airfields if they don't even have the reserves to make it there.
 
Don’t get the fascination with the A6M. Everything I can find says it had between a 5:1 to 9:1 loss rate to the F4F. After Darwin took its early toll the Allies learned what to do against it. It also seems that it’s early success was due to pre-Darwin Allied pilots and the superb trained Japanese pilots. Just don’t understand how a plane with a losing record to the F4F (F4F, not even discussing the F6F) could single handily turn/win the BoB.
 

SwampTiger

Banned
so 600 miles X 40% = 240 miles combat radius
No. The 30-40% of max range(ie. (1929 mile - (1929 X .40)) / 2 = maximum radius with prolonged combat. Use .30 for less combat. You can estimate the time used in combat, but I have no formula for that.

British FC will quickly determine where the Zeros are loitering after loosing a few flights of planes. It will take less than a week to devise a countermeasure for loitering Axis Zeros.
 
A very sizeable percentage of BoB kills came in GCI bounces where the victims weren't aware of what was going on until it was too late. The Zero would probably be the aircraft most vulnerable to these bounces, in either air force.
 
Don’t get the fascination with the A6M. Everything I can find says it had between a 5:1 to 9:1 loss rate to the F4F. After Darwin took its early toll the Allies learned what to do against it. It also seems that it’s early success was due to pre-Darwin Allied pilots and the superb trained Japanese pilots. Just don’t understand how a plane with a losing record to the F4F (F4F, not even discussing the F6F) could single handily turn/win the BoB.

I don't know what the ultimate kill ratio for the F4F vs. Zero was, those seem a little high. I think the F4F's overall kill ration was around 6:1 against all opponents. I do know (aviation historian Barrett Tillman is my source) that in the first six months of the Pacific War, USN and USMC F4F pilots scored a 1.5:1 kill ratio over the Zero and this was at a time when they were outnumbered and facing high hour combat veterans whereas the US pilots while well trained were still new to combat and in the process of developing proper counter tactics. This was against the fighter that supposedly ran rings around its opposition for the first year of the war.
 
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