It was great that we got our hands on it but I don't think the course of the war would have changed appreciably if we had not.

It was great that we got our hands on it but I don't think the course of the war would have changed appreciably if we had not.

While it definitely helped refine tactics and airplane design, the Americans had already started to exploit the Zero's weaknesses by June 1942, and were pretty much holding their own by the fall.

I often also see credit for the F6F's design attributed to lessons learned with the Aleutian Zero, but the F6F design process was mostly complete by that point (the first prototype flew only about three weeks after that Zero crashed).

+1

My top complaint with many of these online WW 2 articles is that they often have exaggerated click-bait headlines that do not mesh with the historical facts. In my opinion it's best to stick with scholarly books and articles written by actual military historians.

The thing that galls me though is how the same old rubbish like 'the Nazis nearly had an A bomb!' or 'this Japanese super sub could have nearly turned the tide' and the like is continually trotted out in articles and videos.

Tough crowd!

Or this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Himmler

No one ever mention that.

That's the Nazi version of the Gulf of Tonkin.

...
And then you still have to read 20 books on one plane, tank, battle etc, stir them all round in a pot and it will finally spew out a fairly acurate clear picture

The amount of 'definitive' books i've read on a certain subject only to be surpassed by another definitive book or 'redefined' book by historians, actual participants etc seems to be a never ending thing. Which isn't all bad as new things do come to light or are looked at from a different perspective, plus hindsight.

The thing that galls me though is how the same old rubbish like 'the Nazis nearly had an A bomb!' or 'this Japanese super sub could have nearly turned the tide' and the like is continually trotted out in articles and videos.