page_title: Fighter aircraft
section_title: Pacific theater
hierarchical_section_title: Fighter aircraft / Piston engine fighters / World War II / Pacific theater
caption_attribution_description: English: A Mitsubishi A6M3 Model 22 over the Solomon Islands, 1943. 日本語: ソロモン諸島上空を飛行する、第251海軍航空隊所属の零式艦上戦闘機22型の編隊。"UI-105号機は西沢広義機"とする文献もあるが、撮影者の吉田一によると「誰の搭乗機だったか記憶にない」との事。
context_page_description: A fighter aircraft, often referred to simply as a fighter, is a military fixed-wing aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat against other aircraft. The key performance features of a fighter include not only its firepower but also its high speed and maneuverability relative to the target aircraft.
  The fighter's main tactical purpose is to establish air superiority over the battlefield. The success or failure of a combatant's efforts to gain air superiority hinges on several factors including the skill of its pilots, the tactical soundness of its doctrine for deploying its fighters, and the numbers and performance of those fighters.
  Many fighters have secondary capabilities such as ground attack and some types, such as fighter-bombers, are designed from the outset for dual roles. Other fighter designs are highly specialized while still filling the main air superiority role, these include the interceptor, heavy fighter, and night fighter.
context_section_description: Major air combat during the war in the Pacific began with the entry of the Western Allies following Japan's attack against Pearl Harbor.  The Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service primarily operated the Mitsubishi A6M Zero, and the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service flew the Nakajima Ki-27 and the Nakajima Ki-43, initially enjoying great success, as these fighters generally had better range, maneuverability, speed and climb rates than their Allied counterparts. Additionally, Japanese pilots had received excellent training and many were combat veterans from Japan's campaigns in China.  They quickly gained air superiority over the Allies, who at this stage of the war were often disorganized, under-trained and poorly equipped, and Japanese air power contributed significantly to their successes in the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore, the Dutch East Indies and Burma.
  By mid-1942, the Allies began to regroup and while some Allied aircraft such as the Brewster Buffalo and the P-39 were hopelessly outclassed by fighters like Japan's Zero, others such as the Army's P-40 and the Navy's Wildcat possessed attributes such as superior firepower, ruggedness and dive speed, and the Allies soon developed tactics (such as the Thach Weave) to take advantage of these strengths.  These changes soon paid dividends, as the Allied ability to deny Japan air superiority was critical to their victories at Coral Sea, Midway, Guadalcanal and New Guinea.  In China, the Flying Tigers also used the same tactics with some success, although they were unable to stem the tide of Japanese advances there.
  By 1943, the Allies began to gain the upper hand in the Pacific Campaign's air campaigns.  Several factors contributed to this shift.  First, the P-38 and second-generation Allied fighters such as the Hellcat and later the Corsair, the P-47 and the P-51, began arriving in numbers.  These fighters outperformed Japanese fighters in all respects except maneuverability.  Other problems with Japan's fighter aircraft also became apparent as the war progressed, such as their lack of armor and light armament, which made them inadequate as bomber interceptors or ground-attack planes – roles Allied fighters excelled at.  Most importantly, Japan's training program failed to provide enough well-trained pilots to replace losses.  In contrast, the Allies improved both the quantity and quality of pilots graduating from their training programs.
  By mid-1944, Allied fighters had gained air superiority throughout the theater, which would not be contested again during the war.  The extent of Allied quantitative and qualitative superiority by this point in the war was demonstrated during the Battle of the Philippine Sea, a lopsided Allied victory in which Japanese fliers were downed in such numbers and with such ease that American fighter pilots likened it to a great turkey shoot.
  Late in the war, Japan did begin to produce new fighters such as the Nakajima Ki-84 and the Kawanishi N1K to replace the venerable Zero, but these were produced only in small numbers, and in any case by that time Japan lacked trained pilots or sufficient fuel to mount a sustained challenge to Allied fighters.  During the closing stages of the war, Japan's fighter arm could not seriously challenge raids over Japan by American B-29s, and was largely relegated to Kamikaze tactics.
caption: Mitsubishi A6M3 Zero Model 22
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