Ok you strap on a Grumman Wildcat and go up against an A-6M Zeke. We will come to your funeral.
If my knowledge of written history is correct, Only one U.S. survivor lived to give a verbal report of how the Devestators got massacred.
http://www.aviation-history.com/douglas/tbd.html
Another myth. The Wildcat ALWAYS had a positive kill ratio against the Zero throughout the ENTIRE war. Joe Foss had 26 kills in a Wildcat while he was on Guadalcanal, most of which were A6Ms.
Given equal pilot skill, If it's a one-on-one fight, I would take the Zero. If it is 4 vs. 4 or 12 vs. 12, I will take the Wildcats EVERY time.
Greatly superior firepower and durability plus good tactics beats maneuverability. Of course, the Zero had a massive range advantage, but in any head to head fight with multiples of aircraft the Wildcats will win.
The Zero is actually one of the more overrated aircraft of the war; partially because of the shock that the Japanese weren't a bunch of nearsighted losers and could fly, and that they could build a credible airplane, but also its racking up lots of kills against poorly trained British, Dutch, and Army Air Corps pilots early in the war, against P-39s trying to engage at high altitude, etc.
At the beginning of the war USN pilots were among the best trained in the world, themselves; the gap with the Japanese wasn't as big as a lot of people think.
The tactic was first tested in combat by Thach during the Battle of Midway, when his flight of four Wildcats was attacked by a squadron of Zeroes. Thach's wingman, Ensign R. A. M. Dibb, was attacked by a Japanese pilot and turned towards Thach, who dived under his wingman and fired at the incoming enemy aircraft's belly until its engine ignited.
Soon enough, the maneuver had become standard among US Navy pilots, and USAAF pilots also adopted it.
Marines flying Wildcats from Henderson Field on Guadalcanal also adopted the Thach Weave. The Japanese Zero pilots flying out of Rabaul were initially confounded by the tactic.
Sabur Sakai, the famous Japanese ace, relates their reaction to the Thach Weave when they encountered Guadalcanal Wildcats using it:[1]
For the first time Lt. Commander Tadashi Nakajima encountered what was to become a famous double-team maneuver on the part of the enemy. Two Wildcats jumped on the commander’s plane. He had no trouble in getting on the tail of an enemy fighter, but never had a chance to fire before the Grumman’s team-mate roared at him from the side. Nakajima was raging when he got back to Rabaul; he had been forced to dive and run for safety.
The maneuver was so effective that it was used by American pilots during the Vietnam War, and is still an applicable tactic today.
2 months later the USMC started being equipped with the F4U Corsair. It would rip through the A6m Zero’s like a buzzsaw. Also the P-38 would wreak havoc on them. In Helmet for my Pillow the marines knew the end was near for the Japanese when the P-38’s arrived at Henderson Field.