A big part of the Zero's reputation came from racking up kills in China against a lot of second-rate planes with poorly-trained pilots. After all, there was a reason that the Republic of China hired the American Volunteer Group to help out during the Second Sino-Japanese War – Chinese pilots had a hard time cutting it.

The Wildcat was deficient in many ways versus the Zero, but it still had superior firepower via ammo loadout. The Zero carried very few 20mm rounds, most of it's ammo was 7.7mm. There are records of Japanese pilots unloading all their 7.7mm ammo on a Wildcat and it was still flyable. On the flip side, the Wildcat had an ample supply of .50 cal.

Stanley "Swede" Vejtasa was able to score seven kills against Japanese planes in one day with a Wildcat.

Yes, the discovery of the Akutan Zero helped the United States beat this plane. But MilitaryFactory.com notes that the Hellcat's first flight was on June 26, 1942 – three weeks after the raid on Dutch Harbor that lead to the fateful crash-landing of the Mitsubishi A6M flown by Tadayoshi Koga.

Marine Captain Kenneth Walsh described how he knew to roll to the right at high speed to lose a Zero on his tail. Walsh would end World War II with 17 kills. The Zero also had trouble in dives, thanks to a bad carburetor.

We were behind in technology for many reasons, but once the Hellcat started replacing the Wildcat, the Japanese Air Superiority was over. Even if they had maintained a lead in technology, as Russia showed in WW2, quantity has a quality all of it's own. We were always going to be able to field more pilots and planes than Japan would be able to.

As far as Soviet rockets, once we were stunned by the launch of Sputnik, we kicked into high gear. You can say what you will of reliability, consistency, and dependability, but exactly how many manned Soviet missions landed on the moon and returned? Other than Buran, which was almost a copy of our Space Shuttle, how many shuttles did the USSR field?

The Soviets did build some things that were very sophisticated and were, for a while, better than what we could field. The Mig-31 is a great example. We briefly lagged behind but have a much superior air capability now. The only advantages the Mig and Sukhoi have is speed, they can fire all their missiles and flee. If they are engaged however, they will lose if pilots are equally skilled.

As @newtboy has said, I am sure that Russia and China are working on military advancements, but the technology simply doesn't exist to make a Hypersonic missile possible at this point.

China is fielding a man portable rifle that can inflict pain, not kill, and there is no hard evidence that it works.

There is no proof that the Chinese have figured out the technology for an operational rail gun on land, let alone the sea. We also have created successful railguns, the problem is POWERING them repeatedly, especially onboard a ship. If they figured out a power source that will pull it off, then it is possible, but there is no concrete proof other than a photo of a weapon attached to a ship. Our experts are guessing they might have it functional by 2025, might...

China has shown that long range QEEC is possible. It has been around but they created the first one capable of doing it from space. The problem is, they had to jury rig it. Photons, or light, can only go through about 100 kilometers of optic fiber before getting too dim to reliably carry data. As a result, the signal needs to be relayed by a node, which decrypts and re-encrypts the data before passing it on. This process makes the nodes susceptible to hacking. There are 32 of these nodes for the Beijing-Shanghai quantum link alone.

The main issue with warfare today is that it really doesn't matter unless the battle is between one of the big 3. Which means that ANY action could provoke Nuclear conflict. Is Russia going to hypersonic missile one of our carriers without Nukes become an option on the table as a retaliation? Is China going to railgun a ship and risk nuclear war?

Hell no, no more than we would expect to blow up some major Russian or Chinese piece of military hardware without severe escalation! Which means we can create all the technological terrors we like, because we WON'T use them unless they somehow provide us a defense against nuclear annihilation.

So just like China and Russia steal stuff from us to build military hardware to counter ours, if they create something that is significantly better, we will began trying to duplicate it. The only thing which would screw this system to hell is if one of us actually did begin developing a successful counter measure to nukes. If that happens, both of the other nations are quite likely to threaten IMMEDIATE thermonuclear war to prevent that country from developing enough of the counter measures to break the tie.

Agree with BSR, the only vehicle that could get that tank off the ground fully loaded with fuel was the Buran + solid rocket motors.

The mission generally dictates the engineering and design of a mechanical system. The Buran and the Shuttle are prime examples. The new X-37 resembles both in general shape because a reusable "space plane" needs certain specific physical characteristics.

The Mig-25 looks like the F-15 because both were originally designed as high altitude, high mach interceptors. The demand placed on the system by the overly large engines dictates the shape.

The basic principles of radar "stealth" dictate certain shapes to be effective. The Have-Blue shape was effective against high frequency radar through deflection. As materials technology advanced, e.g. radio absorbing materials, more aerodynamic shapes could be implemented and still retain "stealthy" characteristics, if not improve upon them.

All the F-22 vs Pak50, M1a1 Abrams vs T80 videos are funny. The 1 versus 1 advantages are fun to debate, but its the entire system that wins or loses the fight. In the same vein, its common knowledge that German armor in WW2 was vastly superior to American armor in every technical way. Similarly, German fighter aircraft were more maneuverable than the P-47s and P-51s that they fought. Unfortunately for the Luftwaffe, this superiority was not enough to defeat the allied system as it rolled east across Europe.

The term 5th generation does not define the aircraft themselves, but the system they belong to. If you read wikipedia, this does not mesh, but the wiki values maneuverability (which is inherently limited by the pilot), stealth features (limited by current materials and design), advanced avionics (what does this mean?) and multi-role capabilities (we have had this since the 1980's). The key to 5th generation fighters and its defining characteristic is the ability to integrate the new fighters with every other piece of war equipment in the theatre, not just in tactical use, but the total meshing of sensors and 2-way data links. Its the difference between a war of attrition and a war of "look first, shoot first".

The Russians appear to be building an excellent stealth fighter that looks sexy as hell. The Chinese are doing the same. What they both lack at the current time is the "backend" systems to make these new 5th generation-esque vehicles fully capable. The Pak50 and the J20 won't be sharing targeting data with their Navy or other ground forces anytime soon.

>> ^dag:
In hindsight one wonders why a country would copy something as flawed as the Space Shuttle when traditional boosters are so much better. Nice find.


I was amazed how bad the space shuttle was when we studied it in my college engineering ethics class. It was more or less a political design and the challenger disaster happened despite frantic warnings by the engineers because there was political pressure to keep up the promised routine flights and cost savings.

In Soviet Russia, shuttle spend more time on land than Beach Boys!

Ba ba ba, ba-ba Buran.

>> ^srd:
According to wikipedia:
"The development of the Buran began in the early 1970s as a response to the U.S. Space Shuttle program. While the Soviet engineers favoured a smaller, lighter lifting body vehicle, the military leadership pushed for a direct, full scale copy of the double-delta wing Space Shuttle, in an effort to maintain the strategic parity between the superpowers."


Thanks!

According to wikipedia:
"The development of the Buran began in the early 1970s as a response to the U.S. Space Shuttle program. While the Soviet engineers favoured a smaller, lighter lifting body vehicle, the military leadership pushed for a direct, full scale copy of the double-delta wing Space Shuttle, in an effort to maintain the strategic parity between the superpowers."

found this in wiki article:

The development of the Buran began in the early 1970s as a response to the U.S. Space Shuttle program. While the Soviet engineers favoured a smaller, lighter lifting body vehicle, the military leadership pushed for a direct, full scale copy of the double-delta wing Space Shuttle, in an effort to maintain the strategic parity between the superpowers.

warning - shameless self-promotion!!!

http://www.videosift.com/video/Buran-Energia-Russian-space-shuttle

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Nasa, America, Space, Shuttle' to 'NASA, America, Space, Shuttle, Soviet Union, VKK, Buran, launch' - edited by MarineGunrock

The Buran from Russia was a remote control version of the space shuttle and it completed a few orbits and landed. That makes it the biggest remote control plane.