Early-1930s fighters looked unattractive because strike aircraft were faster, defensive formations were harder to attack, and short-range fighters struggled to escort strikes or maintain combat air patrol. Japanese doctrine also judged interception difficult without a speed advantage of more than 30 knots, while 7.7 mm fire could ricochet from metal aircraft at a poor impact angle. Japanese attritional doctrine nevertheless depended on destroying an enemy's aircraft, while British doctrine emphasized breaking up attack formations and US thinking lay between those approaches. This tension leads to a counterfactual about Pearl Harbor, Coral Sea, and Midway without A5M or Zero fighters in the Japanese carrier groups. The Second Sino-Japanese War supplied the corrective: the A5M's performance showed that fighters still had value and helped drive the Zero's development.
Notable Point · 1:20:11-1:25:00
The near loss of Japanese carrier fighters
The closing fighter discussion explores how Japanese carrier doctrine nearly moved away from fighters before combat experience restored their value.