A6M Zero

Video from the channel Hoje na Segunda Guerra Mundial about Mitsubishi A6M Zero, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 8:41. Language: Portuguese. Video type: Documentary.

A Portuguese-language episode of a series on Second World War fighters, devoted to the Mitsubishi A6M Zero. It covers its design, the origin of its name, its early combats, and how the Allies learned to neutralise it.

The project began in 1937, when the Imperial Japanese Navy was seeking a replacement for the A5M fighter for carrier operations. Mitsubishi assigned the development to its chief designer, Jiro Horikoshi. The name comes from the imperial year 2600, equivalent to 1940, when it entered service. In A6M, the A indicates a carrier-based aircraft, the 6 that it is the sixth model, and the M the manufacturer. Its first victory came on 13 September 1940, when 13 Zeros destroyed 27 Soviet-built Polikarpov fighters flown by Chinese pilots. By the time of Pearl Harbor, in December 1941, Japan had about 500 Zeros in the Pacific, mostly of the Model 21. An example captured in Alaska in June 1942 allowed the Americans to study it in depth.

Built with a special aluminium alloy and without armour or a self-sealing fuel tank, it was highly manoeuvrable and reached 533 km/h. With an auxiliary tank it had a range of 3,100 km, and about 2,600 km in the Model 21. It carried two 7.7 mm machine guns and two 20 mm cannons. Tests revealed its fragility and its loss of performance at high speed, which the Allies exploited with diving hit-and-run attacks. More than 10,000 units were built.