Quote:
Originally Posted by Slick_rick
Well, you technically never answered the question nor do I understand the general point of your statements. The ability of the Hellcat to later outperform the Zero has nothing to do with its similarity or dissimilarity to the Zero.
While the Zero was lightweight and more aerodynamic design which allowed it to out turn and outmaneuver the F4F, Wildcat, did have superior armor and was able to take more damage. The Zero was also an primary attack, long range fighter while the Wildcat had a much shorter range. "The F6F Hellcat was designed to enhance the favorable aspects of the F4F while having a much higher top speed and greater range, allowing it to outperform the Zero." So I think its safe to assume while improvement were made they didn't scrape the basic design and philosophy behind their own planes in order to achieve dominance.
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Yuuya's point was the unbalance ratio between manuverability bias vs weak engine power for Fubuki, hence the Zero example.
Note that Hellcats has superior high speed turn rates over the Zeros.