F4F Wildcat vs A6M Zero-sen, Pacific Theater 1942 is the 54th title of Osprey's series Duel. It is an in-depth examination of these two arch rivals of the first year of the Pacific War.

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Thanks!

Thank you for this great review. Looks like a really good read.

Apaprently one of the overlooked reasons for high German scores is a Soviet practice of allowing only the flight leader to communicate with their subordinates (or other flight leaders): The fighters below each flight leaders had radios that could only receive!: This feature I know for a fact carried on for Soviet tank platoons at least until the 1980s...

German aces described fighting the Soviet fighter formations as fighting an "apparatus": You shot down the forwardmost aircraft of the formation first: Then the others milled about in confusion and were easily shot down: They could not even warn one another... Sounds incredible to me, but is apparently true...

Gaston

Hi Gaston

Ironically, Ulrich Steinhilper made a similar criticism about the Luftwaffe's limited use of radios in fighters at the time of the Battle of Britain in his autobiography "Spitfire On My Tail".

All the best

Rowan

Interesting! I did not know that. Ironically II, in the book Clashes: Air Combat Over North Vietnam, it was identified that USAF stuck with a strict finger-four that only allowed the flight leader to shoot, thereby reducing a Phantom flight's firepower by 3/4; USN used Loose-deuce and allowed both pilots to shoot if they had a shot; USN had better air-to-air results throughout the war.

Gaston, that boggled my mind when I first read that most Soviet tanks had no radios. I recall that when a leader was knocked out, the rest would just stop while waiting for runners to restore a command structure, or they would mill around aimlessly; always fearful that doing something not in the "playbook" would bring the wrath of a Commissar down upon them. War On The Eastern Front 1941-1945 : The German Soldier in Russia by James Lucas, absolutely flabbergasted me as to how rigid Soviet practices were.

Interesting (II). I need to go back and re-read some books. I would swear that I read of Jagdflieger receiving warning calls from their schwarm wingmen. I do recall learning from Horrido!: Fighter Aces of the Luftwaffe by Raymond Toliver, that the leader was the only one with 'a right to shoot' except when a wingman had to run off an attacker but I do not recall ever reading that Luftwaffe wingmens' R/T were "R"-only. That would defeat the ability of the wingman to warn his leader; also since pilots did not always get to fly "their" aircraft, it is difficult to believe that half of all Bf 109s couldn't transmit.