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.
Luftwaffe with A6M's as best fighter.
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.