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Originally Posted by JeffK
JoeB,
Thanks for the info that there are others here that are more familiar than us at Japanese losses. Sadly they cant be bothered in posting their knowledge.
Unless they post their irrefutable evidence, these figures will probably never be known.
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Well I'd like to see as much info as possible also too, but as was mentioned the J side of those combats has been published in more than one place, no real reason to base an analysis on Spit claims (or the J claims, or really anybody's claims in any air combat, unless we really know the claim accuracy of a large sample of other combats by the same units in similar conditions).
A little more delving into the bookshelves the J fighter losses by date given in Price, Osprey series "Spitfire Mark V Aces 1941-45" (which was mentioned by another poster) are:
March 15: 1 A6M; May 9: 1 A6M lost, one crashlanded on rtn; Jun 20: 1 Ki-43; Sep 13: 1 A6M. 5 total, presumably the 3 A6M's + ki-43 in the H/I books doesn't include the crashlanding. The Spit losses to air combat, probably from, or wrecked in combat damage crashlandings totals 31 in Price.
Another comparison is the 49th FG P-40's defending Darwin in 1942. The Kagero series book on "3/202 Kokutai" by Pajdosz and Zbiegniewski (filling in some P-40 losses from Rust "Pacific Sweep") only gives results for the combats April 25 onward. In those it says the then 3rd Ku lost 8 A6M's and downed 15 P-40's; 3 more had been lost in March/early Apr assuming no other J losses. The overclaim ratio was broadly similar (quite high) for all air arms in both those bombing campaigns.
Ignoring the apparent difference in P-40 and Spit results, and focusing on the P-40 v. F4F results (where national considerations factor out) I don't see how they could be considered really equivalent based on some special disadvantage to defending Darwin. The F4F's engaged A6M's in many tactical situations in G'canal campaign (v. med altitude bombers but also at lower alt, v carrier planes, over J convoys etc) and in the 4 carrier battles in 1942, some clear defeats for both sides in various situations, but there was a pretty clear tendency toward rough parity. The USAAF facing the A6M's in other 1942 situations didn't even do as well as they did at Darwin. Later, USAAF P-40's fought on more or less equal terms with A6M's (often in mixed forces w/ more advanced US planes). But those potentialities aside, the F4F units of 1942 performed better as a historical fact.
Joe