Is it correct that the Japanese Zero in WWII were the best fighters, but soon got overtaken because of lack of improvement?

Is it correct that the Japanese Zero in WWII were the best fighters, but soon got overtaken because of lack of improvement?

“Best” is too vague a concept, especially with respect to naval aviation. Mitsubishi A6M zero had important advantages even against late war fighters, F6F Hellcat and F4U Corsair.

Mitsubishi A6M Zero

Specifically, Zero had greater range, lower fuel consumption and was smaller than either. All of these are important, arguably more so than raw performance and manuverability. A greater range is of vital importance in naval warfare, it enables you to hit the enemy from beyond his own range. Lower fuel consumption is useful, it allows you to run the mission for longer without an underway resupply that leaves you unable to perform operations for a day or so. Small size is also useful because it allows you to crap more planes in the small hangar of a carrier.

Sardines in a can have it luxurious

Of course it can be argued better speed performance and especially pilot survivability of later war Allied fighters more than offset the disadvantages against the Zero, I won’t disagree with that. Yet the key to the defeat of Zero was also the IJN’s half-hearted efforts to rescue downed pilots. USN always made the rescue of downed pilots utmost priority, at the Great Marianas Turkey shoot they fished out almost 200 aircrew who ran out of fuel and had to ditch. Floatplanes, submarines and destroyers acted in a rescue mission the likes of which was never seen before and only 38 aircrew were ultimately lost (half of whom were confirmed KIA).

The Japanese rarely bothered, they might send a plane or two to look for survivors, but downed airmen were left to fend for themselves more often than not. This was a major reason for the operational attrition of Japanese aircrew and a major reason why Zero was defeated if not outright humiliated - it had less skilled pilots after Guadalcanal.

The design was a tad on the light side and many pilots were killed outright. Outside of that fighter wasn’t nearly as bad as it was badly handled by the IJN. That made the greatest impact, the design was wholly secondary to the poor use.

Picture Source Wikipedia

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